Welcome to another exciting episode of Your Mind Your Rules. And I'm delighted to introduce my guest, Anna Richardson. She's been in broadcasting for thirty years. She split between production, creation, and presenting. And she lost everything, and she had to start all over again. And we all know her, of course, from my favourite show, Naked Attraction, which I watched with my mouth literally on the floor. So many girls say want to be a TV presenter. I brought Anna on here today to ask her a lot of rules. The rules about working in television, the rules about bouncing back, the rules about having a voice, and the rules about seeing lots of naked bodies. And how did you go over there? So let's start with that. To have a show like Naked Attraction where you're looking at penises and vaginas, and you start with that. You start with the feet and go up. What rule would you have to have if you were to be a presenter on that show and make it work?
SPEAKER_01Absolute and total acceptance of other people and humanity. So I mean, you and I know each other really, really well. And we were just talking five minutes ago about how we were brought up, and your dad was a headmaster and you went to his school. My father was a vicar. So my dad, my dad is a priest. So I was brought up in an environment where I have a vicar for a father, a mother who's an RE teacher. So I was always told, you need to be a good girl, you need to not question anything, you need to just be there and be clever and be pretty and you know not tip the boat at all. But going back to the whole naked attraction thing, that environment also taught me about acceptance and opening the door to anybody. So if you think about it, if you're brought up in a vicarage, I could have had, or my dad would have the um the bishop at the front door, or he could have a beggar. And we were expected to embrace those people regardless of who they are and to accept them. So I think from a very, very early age, I was taught that everybody is equal and your natural curiosity and your humanity kicks in, and you just want to know about who they are.
SPEAKER_00So I think, does that answer the question? I think so, because I'm imagining how many TV presenters wouldn't not be able to help keep a straight face. Imagine Bradley Walsh doing that. He would be laughing, or they would feel embarrassed, or something would get in the way, or they wouldn't have the compassion because you know this is you see, people think naked attraction is a version of porn, and it is not because porn is a perfect body, no body hair, everything's perfect, and porn is incredibly damaging. But I think naked attraction, for all its knocking, well, actually not the right word, is it, or knocking, for all its critics showed you real bodies, labia looked like this, penises look like this. Some people do actually have pubic hair and wobbly thighs and a wobbly butt. And I think it made people think, I haven't got any problems.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Um I thought very, very carefully when I was offered Naked Attraction. I went in to go and see Studio Lambert, who are the fantastic producers, to talk to them about what is this format, why are we doing it? Because why are we doing it? What's the what's the ethical purpose of doing this show? So I really drilled down into that. And I used to be a format creator, so I understand television formats inside out. So once I understood that this is not pornography, we're not and it's not even titillation. It's not exactly laugh at someone who's got a funny body. Well, I mean, it it it's it's not sexy at all. And once I understood that actually there is an element to this which is educational, yes, it's funny, yes, you play along, but there's an educational element, and actually there's a there's a human interest element about acceptance and showing people that we all look different and we all deserve to be loved. And that really is what naked attraction's about. I mean, I consider it my absolute privilege. Like you, you have worked with extraordinary people around the world, and it's a privilege to be able to speak to people about their greatest vulnerabilities. On Naked Attraction, I've been lucky enough to see trans people in the middle of their journey, completely naked, people with disabilities, people with uh stomas, standing there naked, saying, This is who I am, this is what I look like, and I also deserve to be loved, and that's a privilege.
SPEAKER_00You know, I was told I would never be able to have a baby. I had cancer twice and was told I'd have to live with that forever. I got run over and was told I couldn't walk for six months. I actually walked in six weeks. And each time I got that diagnosed, I thought, no, this is my mind, my rules. I bounced back from cancer. I had a perfect baby. I recovered from being run over super fast, and I used the techniques in this book. In fact, I wrote this book while I was in plaster, having been run over. Because the things that made me bounce back will make you bounce back from relationship issues, wealth issues, childhood issues, confidence issues. If you want to live your life on your terms and have love, success, health, wealth, even the body of your dreams, it's all in here. Buy it and change your life forever. And you know, there's something so interesting that a lot of us don't know. The basis of all friendships are we choose people who share our vulnerabilities. So if you're perfect, hey, I'm perfect, perfect body, perfect life, you're also very lonely. In fact, if you want to be lonely, try to be perfect. It's the shortcut to being lonely and dissatisfied because there is no terminal called perfection. Yes. But I love that that it's our vulnerabilities that make us connect, and humans need to connect. And you may not know this, but one of the primary causes of depression today is that we are overexposed every day to fake images of perfection.
SPEAKER_01Oh.
SPEAKER_00You know, you look at someone, you look at the Kardashians, and like, wow, they're perfect. You look at a model who's had three kids and she's got a perfect body. Everyone, I mean, you look at friends. This girl is a waitress living in Central Park. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Who works in a coffee shop and has an apartment in Central Park? It's just not real. But we get overexposed to fake image of perfection every single day. And we need something like interaction to say, actually, it's really this is it. Because we have a whole generation that have never seen pubic hair, have never seen cellulite. Exactly. They've only seen plumped-up lips. Yeah, yeah, perfect breasts that are up here. Perfect vulvas. Yeah, perfect vulvas. And you know, my grandmother didn't know what a design of a didn't know what a design of vagina was. But our grandmothers had more sex than we do. Because they didn't, they didn't have that worry about, oh, I haven't got a thigh gap, I haven't got a design of vagina. That's true, and also they didn't have social media and everything else. They had no idea that you should even be ripping your cubes off. They they didn't know that. So they all accepted their flaws, and actually the basis of a relationship is this I'm a flawed person, and I'm gonna have flawed relationships with flawed people. It's called being flawsome, it's a very kind, forgiving place. My husband is flawed, my friends are flawed, my daughter's flawed. But we have a lovely flawed relationship, we're flawsome. That's a good place. Perfection is a very lonely, satisfying place, and it's also human, as you say.
SPEAKER_01So to be flawsome is to be human. And again, one thing about naked attraction and a lot of the shows that I've done, because actually, if I look back at my career, it's always been about transformation and it's always been about challenge. And that is to do with, I think, authenticity. So the shows that I do, I like to do something that reflects uh who I really am. It's authentic connection. So going back to what you were saying about, you know, perfection equals loneliness, because we're missing and dissatisfaction, we are missing now, aren't we, the human connection and acceptance of we are all flawed, we're all fellow sufferers, we're all in this together. And the more we start looking at perfection, as you say, the more distanced we become from being human.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So as a TV presenter, you have people expect you to be perfect, and they always look at what you look like. They never, if you're on the radio go, hey, I love what you said, on TV, they go, I love that shirt. Yeah. Oh, where did you get that eyeliner from? What was that like for you to be in the public eye? And of course, you are judged every day and what you look like. You might say I'm not, but you I mean, even poor Mary Beard, look what how how she got it. Yeah. When you're in the public eye on people's televisions. And wasn't Aegill who said, You have a duty if you're on my TV to look nice, which I thought was kind of rude.
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, exactly, coming from A.A. Gale, I mean, you know, he's a fine one. Um, but it's been very, very difficult. I mean, women are judged. We always have been judged by how we behave, what we look like. And I've struggled hugely over 30 years. I've worked in in TV for just over 30, 30 years. And I've been, when I meet people in public, I either get, oh, oh, you're you're thinner in real life, or oh, you oh, you're fatter than you look on TV. Oh, you look different. So we're constantly judged, and you're having to balance that sort of, well, what does that mean? What does this judgment mean about me? Um, but not only that, in terms of how we look, it's how we behave as women. I mean, we were chatting, weren't we, just sort of before we started recording about how we met. A, about how we met, but also exactly, which we'll come on to, which was brilliant.
SPEAKER_00We'll tell him. So I was doing a show called Super Science. And Anna was coming to my house to be hypnotized to get over an eating issue. And the crew said, Oh, you won't like her. She's very difficult. They say that all the time about women, they're very difficult. If you have an opinion, you're difficult. And Anna was at my house going, Oh God, one of these crazy woo-woo people. So we were both primed to not like each other, and we really hit it off.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then you came and trained with me in RTT.
SPEAKER_01Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, you did you I consider you to be my mentor in many ways, and you did uh change my life extraordinarily. Change your relationship with food. Exactly that. So just for for people listening who don't know the story, my job on Super Size Super Skinny was every week I was meant to try a different diet in order to report back to the viewers about which diets worked. And of course, none of them. None of them, exactly. But going back to what you were saying about how judged we are as women, I was basically told that, you know, oh, you know, you could do with losing a few pounds, so we'll we'll make you the reporter on this show, and then you can, you know, you can see whether you can shift some weight. So immediately you're put into this box of oh, hang on a minute, I didn't realise that I needed to lose some weight, but now I'm being told I need anyway. So I can remember turning up at your house with the crew, standing outside, because the claim at the time was it'll just take one session to help you to lose weight. And I can remember standing with the crew and going, This is gonna be bullshit. Hypnosis to lose weight. In I went and I was with you for three or four hours. It was extraordinary, and I can remember you doing the regression on me, and you took me all the way back to a scene which clearly I hadn't thought about ever, really, for years. And this was to do with where my issue with food first began. And I went back to when I was four years old, and I knew that my mother had been taken into hospital the night before, had been rushed into hospital, she was pregnant with my little brother, and she was gone for eight weeks because she was very ill with placenta previa. So as a four-year-old, I woke up the following morning to say, Well, where's my mummy, where's my mummy gone? And I was told that she was very ill, so immediately I was extremely anxious. And so my dad, and this was in the 70s, so unreconstructed male, no idea how to look after, you know, two children, just fed me chips and jelly and cider. And I just got fatter and fatter and fatter. And my mum said that he would take me in to see her in her hospital bed. And I was so anxious and so, I guess, traumatized by why she'd disappeared and why she was ill, that I used to wash my hands in the corner and I'd sing, yummy, yummy, yummy, there's room in my tummy for some more. Because I just needed to fill the gap with food. So food equaled love for me.
SPEAKER_00And you know, you've really hit the nail on the head because eating is an emotional issue. No one says, hey, my life is great, I'm so happy, I need six donuts. Yes, I'm having a wonderful time, I need two Indian takeaways. It's always what I call the emptiness inside, and the emptiness is the unmet needs of a child who doesn't feel significant or important or loved or connected. In your case, you probably were, but your mother disappeared for eight weeks. Children have no idea what that means because at four, you don't have any logic at all. You live in the world of feeling, there's no logic. And the feeling is my mummy isn't here. I guess she doesn't want to be here. And then you regress back because what's the thing that made you feel happy? Milky, creamy stuff. When you're a baby, someone gives you milk and you feel better. So it's no surprise we think having a bad day, I need pizza. No, as I'm having an awful day, I need celery. Yeah. I need lettuce, I need a bit of grilled trout. It's always cheese, ice cream, milky things. They can be savory like pizza, macaroni, cheese. But we have sensors here that remember and they go, oh, that solves everything. So a little girl whose mother's not there, father has no idea how to feed you, and you're rubbing your hands because you're anxious, because you've taken ownership of a problem.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And now the brain always goes back to what something means. So war milk. Well, what does that mean? We go back. So your brain went back to the emptiness that you felt when she wasn't there. But the tragedy is that mums come home with a baby, everything's great, but your brain does not go, oh, it's all fine now. It continues with a with a pattern it's learnt. I've got an emptiness and I need to fill it with milky, creamy, fatty, sugary foods.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely right. And when my little brother was brought home, of course, you know, my mum had had an emergency C-saction and she was very ill for a while. So again, the focus was taken off me and my older brother, and was placed on this little child. So again, there's there's another trauma there of who's this imposter that's coming of being replaced. And he gets all the attention. Exactly that. So I I learned that sort of mistaken association with the creamy, fatty, salty, sugary stuff when I was very little. Yeah. So you with RTT, very, very cleverly, I remember it very clearly, making the association between, oh, I don't need to do that anymore because I'm grown up. Yeah, that's not you anymore. It's not me anymore. I I have a choice over what I can eat. And I remember clearly you saying to me, just visualise what weight you would like to be. And I visualize standing on the scales, and I wanted to be nine and a half stone, and I hit it to the pound. And it took me maybe three months to lose a couple of stone, and that was one session. And you kept it off, didn't you? And I kept it off. One session.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So that convinced me of how extraordinary hypnosis is and your method is. And then some years later, I went on to train as well in in hypnotherapy.
SPEAKER_00Because a good good therapy changes a neural pathway. So that's the thing. You can talk about something forever, but only therapy that changes your neural pathways work. So when someone does something, such as one of my clients was telling me that she didn't see her father much, but every month she's went for one morning and they went for burgers and milkshakes and ice cream. And whenever she was sad, it was burgers, milkshake, ice cream, nothing else, and a lot of it because she was trying to get back the memory because food has a memory. We have taste receptors here, and the brain goes back to what do burgers mean? It means my dad loves me. So the the trick is to find the pattern, understand it, change it. Here's a little child who's got her dad's love all mixed up with burgers and ice cream and milkshakes. That makes understand it makes perfect sense to a child. But now change it, say, Well, that's not me. I'm not five. My dad loves me. And I had to imagine every time she saw him, he bought a hundred burgers and a hundred milkshakes and a hundred ice creams until she couldn't even look at them anymore. And then she'll say, No, I don't need that. My dad doesn't love me through food. But at four, you don't have the logic to work that out. So when you get the brain to go back and find the pattern, you can actually change the neural pathways. It only takes one session. So therapists will say, Oh, you know, you know, I I worked with somebody who had terrible, terrible OCD. And she was cleaning her teeth for half an hour, six times a day. So we've already got three hours, and the shower. And she said, you know, I just can't stop. It's just a mystery to me. I don't know why I do this. But in the session, she understood something very clearly. When she was a little girl, the mother had multiple partners, lots of children. She was given to foster care, then to her grandma, then to an aunt, and then her biological father died. And she owned this little tiny corner of a room, and everything had to be perfect because, of course, she couldn't control out there at all. And she couldn't control in here either. It was chaos. So she began to create this OCD, which OCD is nothing more than if I can't control in here, all the cushions are just all the knives and forks. And then I pretend I've got control. Anyway, we did one session, never had it since. And I was having dinner with a psychiatrist. Do you know? He said, I can fix OCD now, only need 10 months and 40 sessions to get a breakthrough. And since COVID, all my clients are coming in, and I I didn't want to tell him that you can do it in an hour if you find the pattern. Yes. No babies born saying everything's got to be just so. They they live in mess, they don't care. But you must change a neural pathway. You must change that in one session, and then you don't need to do it anymore. Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01It's it's extraordinarily powerful. It is. And we were talking about uh psychotherapy earlier on, weren't we? And you know, again, look, if therapy works, then fabulous. I've had a psychotherapist on and off for a long time, and I love her, she's amazing. But I truly believe that hypnotherapy gets to the root cause more quickly instantly and you can change that pattern. Whereas sometimes with psychotherapy, you can end up just talking and talking and talking about the same issue.
SPEAKER_00And if you look at Hebs, Hebs with H E B H E W, they will say actually, if you talk about it for too long, it becomes counterproductive. Here you are on session 59. How are you feeling today? The same as I felt on session 58 and 55 and 52. And it's bad for the therapist and the client because you're talking about it when you just want to fix it. You know, the brain reshapes itself. The brain you have today is because of the thoughts you thought last year, and the brain you have next year is because of the thoughts you think today, which you can change.
SPEAKER_01And this is it, because one of the rules of the mind that I love about what you talk about is the fact that your mind is always listening, always listening. And the pictures you make and the words you say to yourself is what you end up believing, and the reality that you're going to create. So I now work, so I'm a broadcaster, but I also do work with therapy and I work with uh corporates as well and teams. And I look at the three things, which is what is the belief? What is it that you believe? Is it true? So let's say it's, you know, um, God, I'm so difficult to work with, for example. Is that true? Challenge that thought. And it if it isn't true, then change it. Can I change this? Of course you can. You can always change.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So who told you that? Yes. Is it true? Is it true? And even if it's true for them, like my grandmother told me, men don't marry successful women. Really? Well, that was true for her generation, but it isn't true today. She told me that you were finished when you were 35. Exactly that. So that's not true.
SPEAKER_01It's not true. So then do you have a choice? We always have a choice to direct our subconscious mind.
SPEAKER_00And your choice, the choice you have every day is this the thoughts running through your head and the words coming out of your mouth, which you are free to change. You have to think, okay. And it a good thing is to say, okay, I'm saying this. There's no good men available. I can't find love. You have to fall off a cliff when you're 34. Is that true? Is it true for me? Is there any benefit to me believing this? Yes. And could I have a different belief? So what helps to say, what would I have to believe? I'm going to ask you this now. What would you have to believe to be a successful television presenter? What did you have to what beliefs did you have to create and also reject in order to make it in television because there's a lot of competition. Now, this is everybody wants that job.
SPEAKER_01And they do, everybody does want that job. Uh now this is interesting, and I'd be interested to hear your take on this. I knew when I was about eight that I would be on television and that I would be successful. I just had a knowing. So I don't know whether that that is a subconscious driver, but I had a a very firm core belief that this is what I want to do, this is what I'm going to do, and I'm good at it, and I will do it.
SPEAKER_00Did you ever practice playing that when you were a child? Were you Yes? See, that's interesting because what you're meant to do in life and your gift lies directly behind and is connected. What you love to do is in the key ages of seven and fourteen. So, you know, if you're always Jo Malone was always making potions out of her mother's flowers. If you're already playing with it, if you're pretending to have surgery with your teddies and dolls, then you can see this is your gift. So you're already playing it. See, I was always writing stories about troubled families. My mother kept them all. Clearly had no insight that we I was in a troubled family, but from the outside it looked perfect. But I wrote about these troubled family little stories with illustrations. Thinking I was going to be a therapist.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But you played at being a TV presenter, so you already knew your guest. So you're given a gift. We're all given a gift. And then our choice is perfect that gift and then take that gift out to the world. Find it. Yes. It's got to be something you love. You cannot succeed doing something you absolutely hate. I mean, I can never imagine being an accountant, but some people say, I love figures, I love numbers, love gardening. I couldn't imagine loving being a chef. I have a friend whose kid was cooking in the kitchen at seven. He's now a famous chef.
SPEAKER_01Yes, exactly that. And I I sometimes look at my life and I think, I have no other skill discernible skills other than I have a gift to be able to communicate, and I have the gift of being interested in people, and I have the gift of actually wanting to help people.
SPEAKER_00And thank God you perfected it and monetized it.
SPEAKER_01Yes, exactly. So you're so right to say, what is it that that the the gift that you have that you enjoy and that you love, and then focusing on that and turning that into your authentic success.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and if you're not sure, ask your family. What did I love doing? What was I always doing? You know, Enid Blyton was writing stories when she was eight. Yes. Look, and most writers I was writing, I was writing when I was five, when I was ten. So you're here on the planet to find your gift, but perfect it. You you never stop perfecting your gift ever. And then take that gift of the world and monetize it. That's why we're here because I don't know what to do. Find something you love and monetize it.
SPEAKER_01Find something you love, monetize it, but as you say, perfect it and keep learning.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, keep learning, you never stop learning.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. So I have spent a lot of the last year continuing to learn. So, as well as my broadcasting, which I absolutely love, I've started in radio, which is which is new to me. So I'm suddenly learning a new skill of actually how do I do this? Because it's very different from television. Very different. But as well as that, I've learned RTT, I um I'm qualified in cognitive behavioral hypnotherapy, I'm now looking at clinical hypnosis. So I'm continuing to learn and perfect what it is that I'm doing because I'm curious. So if we carry on doing that, then as you say, your mind is constantly changing and adapting, and it's plastic. So you're perfecting the things that you're good at.
SPEAKER_00And also your brain doesn't age, you know. Musicians in their 90s and artists have very young brains because the brain is quite brutal. It's got something called use it or lose it. So my father was a head teacher. He died almost at 90, but he was as sharp as a tack. Was he? Yeah, because he always used his brain. We're so busy trying to work out our bodies, but you need something called neurobics, means the brain likes newness. Oh, that's great. I love that. Yeah, it just means pick this glass up with a different hand. When you're cleaning your teeth, balance on one leg, reach for your phone with the opposite hand, because it makes the brain find new neurons, which is why it's called neurobics. If you walk into your house, you'll always go up the stairs on the same leg. Change it. Interesting. You'll notice we always sleep on the same side of the bed. We use the same cup of coffee. 47% of what we do every day, 47% is habits.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00They're the silent architecture of our life. But neurobics means you can get the brain to rewire itself. It likes newness. Yes, and then it's excited by that, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01Very excited. And actually, you find that when you do learn something new, you know, you become fired up by it. It's exhausting as well. But it you you suddenly find yourself sort of quite interested and dynamic and you know, excited about what you're doing, I find.
SPEAKER_00And so I mean today we're so lucky we can go on YouTube and learn everything. It's all on there free. The days of gotta go to the library, write a book.
SPEAKER_01True, but I do think, and again, we touched on this earlier on about the lack of connection that we're seeing at the moment. And I'm definitely seeing that with people that I speak to. So actually, I really like to learn either in person or if I have to do it online, that I'm part of a um like with RTT, that you're part of a group, because it's really important to stay connected.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I think a lot of us must be.
SPEAKER_00Well, when you came on the training, of course, that's very different because you're watching therapy happen, you're watching transformation right in front of it. Do you remember any of the case histories you saw when you came?
SPEAKER_01Do you know? I mean, those five days in Rushton was they were extraordinary. And just seeing the light bulb moment in people when they suddenly made the connection between their um the patterns that they've been living, yeah, for their the dysfunctional patterns that they've been living, and going back to childhood and realizing where something was wrong. So I spoke to somebody who a case I do remember was um somebody who needed to be absolutely perfect at everything in her work. And it was really holding her back because, you know, this sort of perfectionism was making her very, very anxious. And when we did the regression, she went back to when she was about five years old and we did the whole, where are you, what's happening, who are you with? And she was in her bedroom, she was doing her homework, and her mother came in and mocked her about her homework and said, Well, that isn't what happened with the Greeks then. You know, what's this ridiculous picture that that you're doing? That's not what happened. And so the mocking of this child over her homework that she was really proud of, then gave her this anxiety about needing to get everything right and perfect moving on. And just the link that she then made between, I don't need to do that anymore. Actually, I'm good enough at what I'm doing. I'm successful now as an adult. I can let that go of when my mother came and you know, scolded me about my life.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because as a child, you you form a belief, oh, I've got to earn love, I've got to work love, I've got to be perfect. And that simply isn't true. So the good thing is you can say, oh, well, that happened. But what happens is at eight years old, we make it, we come to a conclusion. My dad's not here, I guess I'm not worthy of love. I'm the fourth girl, my mum's crying, I should have been a boy. I'm the fifth boy, my mum wanted a girl. And we form a belief, and we don't realise the havoc that belief will wreak on us 30 years later, and we still have this belief. You know, I worked with a girl who was actually a fireman. She was a head fire crew, and she wouldn't wear makeup, and she wouldn't let her husband put any shelves. And she remembered a scene, she was standing in the street in Ireland, and she was the fifth girl, and her father's friendly said, You're a disgrace, you haven't given your husband a son. He'll never be a man now, thanks to you. And this little girl heard it and thought, Oh, I should have been a boy. And from that moment, she rejected everything female. Yeah. I don't have to pretend to deny being a girl anymore because of this idiot that said that to my mother in the street in Ireland. I was five, but how stupid was he?
SPEAKER_01Exactly that. Exactly that. So it is again about challenging those beliefs, those core beliefs we have about us.
SPEAKER_00You know, our greatest pain comes from the stories we tell ourselves, not other people's, and the lies we tell ourselves. I'm not enough, I don't matter. You know, I I talk in this book about one of my clients who, when he was six, he asked his mother to play. She said, darling, remember I'm not six. I find you so boring. I'm so into, I should never have had children. I'm so intelligent, I can't play with small children. Go and play with your brother. Oh god, God. And from that moment he formed a belief. Oh, if I was smart, my other mother would play with me. If I was intelligent, and then he had another belief. I need to find a really brilliant woman to love me. And then I've recreated my whole childhood and changed the ending. I said, Look, if your mother was that freaking bright, why did she have another one? I mean, this is not the behavior of an intelligent woman. I've had one child, don't like it. I'll have another one, don't like that either. This is not emotional intelligence. And in fact, your belief that if I find someone just like her to love me, it's the worst thing you could do. You need someone who is nothing like her, who's warm and funny. Exactly. And the minute he saw that, oh, because what we do is we the brain tries to create something it knows and changes. It's familiar. Yeah, the brain loves familiar too much. And so his change came in saying, I want someone nothing like my mother. Because he was trying to find her and change the ending. Let's find someone just like her, make her lovely, where in fact the answer is let's change the beginning. Let's find someone funny and warm and caring. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Well, that this is it. I mean, I think that I find with people that once they understand how their thoughts affect their feelings affect their behaviour, and you take them back to that very first moment in order to change that pattern, you get that light bulb moment, don't you?
SPEAKER_00With people going, oh my God, of course. Yeah, I never knew that. I never knew they didn't. And they often do know they have a feeling, but they don't understand what to do with it.
SPEAKER_01What I find, I'm just thinking back to some training I did with you as well, when there was an extraordinary story of a woman who volunteered to do the uh three scenes with you to go back. And her issue, I don't know if you remember this, her issue was that she just wanted to swim with her grandchildren.
SPEAKER_00She had a terrible fear of a terrible fear of water.
SPEAKER_01Now, of course, everybody in the room's thinking, okay, well, we're going to regress her back to when she was little. And we we we went back to her father, threw her into the pool when she was three, and we all thought, well, that's the end of it. That's it. And then you said, no, that's not it. That isn't it. There's another scene. And of course, she spun forward to being 11 and being in her school uniform and standing in front of her father in the hallway. And actually, what turned out was that there was some abuse going on. So she had made this connection between water and swimming, yeah, and her father, who had initially had thrown her into the pool, but actually it wasn't to do with that, it was to do with him and the abuse.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so actually, I remember that scene. She she actually jumped in the pool and he ran in and got her and said, You stupid girl, I can't protect you, and shouted at her. But in the next scene, he was trying to abuse her saying, if you let me do this, I'll protect you. Exactly. So she got the protection, all confused, and then she said, I thought, well, if he wants to do that to me, I'm I'm not worthy of anything. Yeah. And she had this fear of drowning and the belief that nobody would come and get her because her father was rusting after her body. That's right. And she went to Spain the next weekend and swam with her grandchildren. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01I mean, extraordinary. So you know, the the power of our minds and hypnosis is going back to that one scene, isn't it? And saying, this isn't this isn't the truth. This isn't what you need to believe.
SPEAKER_00But it's not true.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But let's go back to you. When you were growing up, you know, you know that our greatest pain is that we feel we're not enough, not worthy enough, not good enough, not interesting, not attractive. There's so many ways to feel not enough. I'm sure you've seen it in television over and over again. When did you first believe you were not enough? And what did you have to do to overcome that?
SPEAKER_01Hmm. I think that um probably as we've discussed, uh realizing when I was four that, you know, just just the pain of of my mother going um had a big impact on me. Um but also I think realizing, and I again I'm interested in what you've said before about your your place in sibling positions.
SPEAKER_00Oh yes. Four play.
SPEAKER_01We play, there's only four roles we can play. Which I identify with. So I think Which one were you? Well, so I'm the only girl, I'm the middle child, and obviously I've got a younger brother and an older brother. So we know, don't we, that that the four roles are the brilliant one, we have the nurturer, the carer, the carer, we have the difficult one, and we have the ill one. Yeah, the sick one.
SPEAKER_00The sick one. So I'll cut it if you don't mind very quickly. When a child, I mean, if you're lucky enough to go, hey, I'm loved, I'm wanted, I was planned, it's great. But if you're not sure that you're loved or wanted or belong to this group, there's only four roles. You can say I call it foreplay, and again, it's all in here. The first one is to be the sick one. Being sick is so useful because it's almost as good as being loved. You think, oh, I didn't think they loved me, but they're buying all this special cream and making me these special gluten-free things. They must care about me. So being sick is so effective, we often never give it up. The next one is the brilliant one. Imagine going back in time. If you're a brilliant hunter, you were indispensable to that tribe. So the brilliant one is still wanting to be indispensable. Of course, I was the carer. Every therapist is the carer, and they think, oh, I'm not getting love. I know, I'll give it. I'll give what I haven't got. And they give so much, but they don't always receive it. And finally, the youngest one is usually the rebel. All the roles are gone, I'm just going to be difficult. I've got to take control away from these other people somehow. Yes. So I was the carer.
SPEAKER_01What were you? So I was the difficult one and the rebel. And so I switched between the rebel and probably also being um wanting to please, actually. So maybe being the brilliant one as well. So I realized that I wasn't enough and that I needed to sort of fill this role. Probably when I was about ten, and my parents' marriage broke up, the family just imploded, I was sent off to boarding school.
SPEAKER_00And who did you live with when you weren't at boarding school?
SPEAKER_01My mother.
SPEAKER_00Okay. My mother.
SPEAKER_01And your two brothers too? And my older brother was away at boarding school. My little brother lived with my dad. So our whole broken family. It was a real broken family. And so that had a huge uh impact on me as a child.
SPEAKER_00Was there a sense of shame as a vicar and a religious education?
SPEAKER_01For my father. For my father, 100%. Terrible shame. And I think for my mother as well, because this was was the mid-80s. Actually, no, the early 80s. So I think it was very, very difficult for them both, but particularly my father. So and he made that known. He made that known within the family. This is a shameful thing. So I got And did you pick up the shame? Yes.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01I did.
SPEAKER_00So now you know where the not enoughness came from, that sense of shame.
SPEAKER_01Yes, but I've always, always stood up to my father, even when I was very little. So I'm not again, and this shows in the work that I do, I am not afraid to speak truth to power. So hence you come back to if you've got a mouth and a vagina, then you're in the difficult world. So I'm not afraid to do that and to call out when things aren't right. But I learned that when I was certainly when I got sent away to boarding school, that okay, the only way I'm going to be able to survive is to be the rebel and is to be the difficult. So I shaved all my hair off. You know, I was smoking behind the sheds, I was, you know, sort of hanging out with the boys in the village. But at the same time, I was desperate to also be the good one and to be academically bright. So yeah, I was always the tricky.
SPEAKER_00And so we play this part, and then the part becomes us. And of course, I know you were kind of shunned. Can I ask you about that? So, how did you, what did you have to believe about yourself to come back from that?
SPEAKER_01So it goes back to maybe when I was little and I said to you when you said, you know, how'd you become a TV presenter? How did you get into this? I knew that I was going to be. So I have a core belief that I know that I'm a good person, I know that I'm good at what I do, I know that I was right, and I know that if I just keep going and I have the resilience, then I can make things happen.
SPEAKER_00So you had a great, you see, we make our beliefs, and then our beliefs turn around and make us, and then we have something called confirmation bias. We look for proof of what we have chosen to believe. And you could have said, Oh, me in my big mouth, I should have shut up, but you didn't. You had a belief. I'm a great TV presenter, I've got something to say. Yeah, I got a gift, I'm right, and I'm coming back. So you also have what I call the bounce back factor. Absolutely have the bounce back factor. In in in anything in a relationship, in a career with an illness, if you can bounce back like a big rubber ball, if you can come back, that will define you. Having the bounce back factor is crucial. So I want to know what you did and how you bounced back.
SPEAKER_01So I relentlessly pursued uh TV presenting jobs.
SPEAKER_00I couldn't get any more presenters. What was the belief going on behind them? This is what you were doing, but what were you believing and thinking that got you to keep going? That I'm worth it and that I'm talented.
SPEAKER_01Oh, good.
SPEAKER_00Oh, good.
SPEAKER_01I'm so pleased. And I think again, thinking about uh boarding school, that I had to survive when I went to boarding school. So I can remember the first night being there, I was 10 years old. And as part of uh the initiation ceremony, when you when you're taken into your house, um the girls would strip you and give you a cold bath. And I can the older girls. The older girls would. And I can remember my first night there going, you can fuck right off. And I was turned. Touch me, this isn't gonna happen. So I think that there was this resilience even the rebel in you is already working.
SPEAKER_00The rebel. So I'm not gonna go along with this. Because the rebels just say no to everything. Exactly that. So I they need to take the power back. Yes. So that was probably very good that you're the rebel because when you had these girls stripping you naked, and you said no. No, this isn't gonna happen. I'm I'm gonna take the control back. You're absolutely right. Because this is very much your mind, your rules. You go, my mind, my rules. You know, when I got run over and they came in to measure me for orthopedic shoes, I'm like, don't bother. I will never ever wear all these shoes. They won't wear matters. No. I said, waste of your time. I won't put them on, I won't be measured, you don't even know me. If you think I'm wearing orthopaedic shoes, you can forget it. There's just no way. Because it was my mind. Yeah. My rules, I'm not going to spend the rest of my life in those hideous orthopaedic shoes.
SPEAKER_01And that's the key, is I am not going. My mother used to say to me that when I was little, when I was about four, she would ask me to do something and I would turn around and go, No, Mummy Richardson, I will not. Isn't that amazing? So again, maybe the little rebel sort of coming in, but I had the belief after losing my job, you know, 20 years ago, that I need to keep on going. I can do this. And you need to make your own rules. I need to make my own rules. So I couldn't get any more presenting. But because I'd I'd trained in journalism and I'd started off in TV production, I then started hammering at the door of, you know, hang on a second, I've got these skills as a producer, as a development producer as well, somebody who can create formats. And I kept on banging until eventually the door opened.
SPEAKER_00And that's another rule. You see, what you do very cleverly, you may not even know why, is you you don't hear a denial, you hear a delay. Yeah. You hear, okay, you're not the right person, this is not the right format, but you come back. So when you say this is not a delay, it's a denial. It makes life very different. Because if it's just a denial, it means it's going to happen eventually and you're going to keep going. Yes, exactly.
SPEAKER_01So I I think I'm I'm fortunate, and perhaps I haven't ever thought about it since, you know, apart from speaking to you, about where that's come from and the resilience, if you like, and the fact that, you know, as you say, it it's not a denial, it's just a delay in in what's happening. But I'm gonna be able to make this happen. So yeah. And how many years did it take? I was out of work for about a good year, actually, a good year, maybe a year and a half. And then eventually the door opened, and I then went into format creation and I worked my way all the way to the top. I had a lot of success with creating formats. Then I went into TV production, worked my way to the top. I was going to become a commissioning editor, which is what I really wanted to do. And then I just, I mean, it's strange how these things happen. I just got the lucky break as a presenter again. Right when I was sort of getting to the top of the tree of making shows, I got asked by Channel 4 to do you now fancy you need to lose some weight. Do you do you fancy doing super size? There you are. Bizarre. Bizarre. But yeah, there's definitely resilience there. And it's it's interesting how you can teach that, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, your mind, you know, there's some rules of mind you need to understand. The mind likes what is familiar, it doesn't like what is unfamiliar, but it's your job to make better stuff familiar. Having huge belief in yourself, which you clearly have, bouncing back, never taking no for an answer. These are good things to make familiar. You can't um go towards pain and pleasure when they're the same. So if you'd thought, oh my god, what if I get another show and it happens again, then your brain is now driving in two lanes. I want this, but uh I want this to happen, but and the way you fix that is to go, I want this, and I'm going back in television, and I'll be very clear, you know, if I see that situation, I'm more armed now to deal with it. So we often get very confused because you say, I want to be slim, but I couldn't live without pizza. I want love, I couldn't cope with being ghosted. I want success, but you know, you never see your kids. And if you switch it, I want success, and doesn't Sella McCartney see her kids? She's a great mother with great children, so it can happen. I want to be slim, and I can have pizza once a week. Yes. I want love, and I'm gonna find someone that stays with me forever. We're soulmates. So if you just understand that the brain, if you link pain and pleasure to the same thing, I want money, never know your friends are, I want success, but you your life is not your own. You have to realise that you're driving your brain in two different lanes. It can't do that.
SPEAKER_01I see what you're saying. So you can't have that um contradiction, can you? That you know, yes, I I I I want to be slim, but but I still want to do it. Yes, exactly.
SPEAKER_00Well, who could live without life so boring without Kate? Yes. And then another very simple Simple one is the brain has one type of it's called right now, which is why when you're in pain as a four-year-old girl and your mother isn't there, it feels like it's going to be like that way forever. So children do this thing called tagging. They think, okay, I can't fix this, and it will always be that way. We don't have money, it will always be like this. My I don't have love and I I can't fix it. So we it's called learned helplessness and learned hopelessness. In that minute when you were four and your mother was gone for eight weeks was an eternity for a child. Eight weeks is forever. You have a belief, oh, she's gone.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00There's nothing I can do about this, and it will always be like this. This is the tagging. And often we say, Yeah, and here I am 30 years later, I still turn to food, I still date the wrong people, I still sabotage because of the the tagging we tagged on to an event. But interesting, your tagging was to be defiant, yes, to fight back, because the kind the carer was probably your father who is the vicar. The brilliant one may maybe in your mother or your brother, but you only had that role left, the the rebel. But it it served you very well.
SPEAKER_01Yes, it it hasn't, it hasn't, because it's okay how it hasn't. Well, it hasn't in that you then can get the label, can't you? Of you know, again when we've talked about women. When I say it served you, I don't mean now, I mean it served you very well going through life. Absolutely, it served me going through life. But again, it hasn't, it hasn't, in that uh you get the label of being difficult. Yeah. They're difficult, they're outspoken, they're challenging, they're they've got a big mouth, whatever it happens to be. So, you know, I have to be very careful not to buy into that and not to believe that. So it goes back to what we were saying earlier on about is it true?
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, the the the thing about these four roles are the four play, the four roles we play to belong. You only need to play them until you don't need to belong. So once you get to the age of 20, you don't need to belong to your parents, you don't need them. It's no longer their job to make you feel happy, it's your job. So we should now think, well, being there, done that. But the problem is we take these roles, especially the sick one. Yeah, my mother was a hypochondriac. I saw that she was evacuated in the war. She was the only kid that was sent back. She was covered in boils because you wouldn't eat. And she learned something. If you're sick, you get a lot of attention and you're special. And she never, ever gave that up. She took it with her a whole life because it it was so useful. It's very difficult to let go of that, isn't it? Well i i if you don't understand it, yes. If you can go, oh, hang on. When I was eight, I decided I had to be brilliant, I had to earn love and chase love. My dad said, if you can get an A, you can get an A star. Look at your cousin. But now I can say, well, I I don't have to do that now because it's not me. So it's very important to kind of we see life through a filter to take the shutter off and say, that was me, but it's not me. That was then and this is now. I'm ready now for a new part. I think I'll take, you know, you know about playing parts, but I I need a new part.
SPEAKER_01Yes, exactly that. Exactly that. It goes back to the choice that we have, doesn't it? That we can always, you know, what do you believe about yourself? Is it true? Do I have a choice? Yes, I do have a choice.
SPEAKER_00And does it help me to hold this belief or does it hurt me? So talk a little bit more about that.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. I'm really interested in this, that that we cover so much about negative behaviour always has a positive purpose. So talk a little bit more about that.
SPEAKER_00Well, again, you know, squeaky wheel gets the oil in Mexico. So the baby that cries gets the milk. So my mother very much understood squeaky wheel gets the oil. She loved being ill. I've never met anyone who would light up when she was in hospital like her. She loved being there. She said, they're all so worried about me, you know. And she never really was ill, but she believed she was always ill because it met a need. And we all have needs, and our needs are very simple. We need to be loved, we need to be connected, we need to be significant, we need to be secure, we need to feel we met. I mean, that's not a big deal, is it? But for a child, it's everything loved, connected, significant, safe, I matter. But when those needs are not met because your mother's sick or mentally ill or whatever is happening, when those needs are not met, you actually form a belief that they're never going to be met. You often accept it, this is my life, or you look for someone else to meet those needs. You never realize, oh, I was a dependent child. Of course I felt that. Now I'm an independent adult. We can look at people like Marilyn Monroe, and we can see that at five, she was so damaged. You can look at Amy Winehouse's father left, and you could see that that never went away. In the room was not a beautiful singer or beautiful actress, was a very damaged child who never really understood that those needs that were now outdated. It's like me putting old battery on my phone and going, well, why does that work?
SPEAKER_01Why is this not working?
SPEAKER_00So we often do that. We we don't understand that we play a part. Yes, and that we have the resources within our state. It's time for a new part. It's like rewriting your story. Every day you get to edit your story and change it. Every day you get to say, you know, I didn't choose this, but I can choose to leave it behind. I can choose, you know, I look at my life, I was the head teacher's daughter. I mean, I couldn't have felt more like a freak if it was tattooed on my forehead. I went to my father's, I was 11. There were 18-year-old boys then. They come and say, Your dad is a obviously, and I didn't even know what the word meant, but I was an 11-year-old kid. No other kid in the school had people come up and talk about their dad like that. And um, I felt so different. Yes. And it's where I understood where not enoughness comes from. I didn't feel enough.
SPEAKER_01But then you've turned that actually into something extraordinary.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but when I left school, I realized I took that with me for years that I'm different, so I can't connect, and we must connect, connection is and ease. So I took it with me until one day I realized I am perpetuating this thing that was real when I was 11. I'm 25, I don't need that anymore. And then I turned, I created the I'm enough movement. I began to write about children who understand this one thing. If your parents don't appear to love you, you don't stop loving them, you stop loving yourself. And it can be for your entire life until you say, Oh, yeah, I was a kid whose parents couldn't, wouldn't, didn't, or maybe they did, but I just didn't feel it. But it's not even true. Yes. And even if it's true, I managed to get here. Yeah. You know, I remember working years ago with a girl who told me this story that her parents had told her that when she was in the womb, they tried to terminate her, they weren't ready for a child. And they're in a culture where they put matchsticks in the cervix because it was supposed to make the baby, but it didn't. And they were so worried that somebody would tell her from this community, they told her, you know, we were very young and stupid, but you wouldn't go anywhere. You're a force and you're meant to be. And she's now this incredible human rights lawyer. Because she had a belief, well, I was meant to be here for a reason, but then another person told me, you know, I was in Texas, I was a girl. I found out my parents tried to terminate me, what chance have I got? I'm nothing, you know, they didn't even want me, so how could I be anything? But here's the other one who's a human rights lawyer. Yes. So it goes back to the to the belief and then the choice. It's not what happens, it's what you think of what happens. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't wanted, but somebody wanted me. You know, it's very much, it's like if I put a syringe on this table right now, and you were in tremendous pain, you would welcome that syringe. If you were having Botox, you tolerate it. If you're having a tattoo, you'd be thrilled about it. And if you're a heroin addict, you'd be very excited indeed. But if you're terrified of needles, it would upset you to just look at it. You might faint at the sight of it. I've had clients who faint at the sight of a needle. So it's not the needle, it's the thoughts we think about the needle. If I put a lump of meat on the table and you're a vegan, that's just if you're a Hindu, it's offensive. If you're into bodybuilding or you're desperately hungry, it's absolutely fantastic. So it's not the thing, it's what you think about the thing, which you can change, actually, like that. Because when you stop thinking a thought, where is it? Well, exactly. Well it's gone. This is it, and thoughts aren't facts. Thoughts are never facts, but we act as if they really are. Yeah. I must have thought it. Yeah, therefore it must be real. It must be real. No one in my class said that, but I thought I was stupid. But no one said, but I must have thought it. Well, that's great, because if you must have thought it, you can stop thinking it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So let's go back to this coming back. What did you have to believe about yourself?
SPEAKER_01I had to believe that I could do it and that I would do it. Um, and I just kept on going. So again, I I think it's just the the resilience and the bounce back factor. I had to believe that that I could.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and you did. And I did. You never doubted that, did you? Never doubted. So if you say to someone, do you believe in God? They go, believe in God? I happen to know He exists. They they they don't question it. Or if you ask somebody, you know, why do you why are you a vegan? They go, because it's important not to eat a creature that's had a faith. So once you have those convictions, not fleeting thoughts, because there are fleeting thoughts and there are convictions. But you want to make your convictions really beneficial and not limiting.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. So I had the conviction, I just had to work out how. Yeah, how, yeah. So you have to As you say, the building block is the conviction that I can do this and I will do this. I've just got to find the work around.
SPEAKER_00So people say to you, Well, you must have just manifested all of this, Anna. What do you say to them?
SPEAKER_01I can just believe that.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I can just manifest it.
SPEAKER_01The manifestation thing. Um, because no, you have to take action. You've got to have the belief, and then you take the appropriate action to make that change.
SPEAKER_00In fact, you need three things. The first thing you need is a conviction that you're worth it. I I deserve to be on TV or on stage or working in a medical facility or being, I deserve it. So you've got to have the I'm worth it, 80% of your mindset is that. And then your second thing is to really work hard towards it. Because if you believe you're worth it and you take no action, it's not going to happen. So I'm worth it, I'm going to work really hard. I'm going to do things that stretch me because I was like a circular thing. I'm worth it, I'm going to take action. Because I'm worth it, I'm going to do the hard work. And if I do the hard work, I feel worth it. And if I feel worth it, I do the hard work. Yes. So if you do the hard work without thinking you're worth it, it doesn't work. And if you think you're worth it and don't do the hard work, it doesn't work. I don't know. Do you know anyone who's manifested who hasn't worked hard?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely not. I mean, you're right, you take the action. You're making that happen. It doesn't just magically sort of come from nowhere. You're having to take the action. And I think that that one thing you've said is so important that you also have to stretch yourself. Again, it's making the unfamiliar familiar, isn't it? Yeah. Because for for me to get back into broadcasting after I sort of lost everything, was having to go into format creation, which you know I hadn't really done before. So it was a stretch for me, but I made it happen and I loved it. And I realized I was really good at it. So there is something about continuing to learn and to sort of stretch your mind for sure.
SPEAKER_00And if somebody's watching this and said, Hey Anna, I want your career. I've always wanted to be a TV presenter or broadcaster. What advice could you give them? What must someone do today in the world of TikTok and YouTube? Well, we say television is, I mean, it's not finished, but people say, oh, television is finished. It's always changing. It is. It's certainly changing. I notice all the adverts are for old people. Yeah. That's obviously the people they think are there now, they're tired of the audience.
SPEAKER_01Yes, with with linear television. Absolutely. What would I say to somebody?
SPEAKER_00I would wanted to make it, who wants your job, your life.
SPEAKER_01I would say absolutely learn resilience and cognitive flexibility. It is my very short answer. Because it's really hard. It's hard. So you have to have the belief that you are good enough at this. And actually, you've got to have the belief and the realization that you're offering something of substance, that you're making a difference to somebody. Because there's plenty of people out there that are just broadcasting, or you know, they're influencers, and because they just like the sound of their own voice, or they've got a million followers, and or whatever it happens to be.
SPEAKER_00We're already seeing there that the influence is got a peak, it's now starting to crash.
SPEAKER_01It doesn't surprise me because I don't think that there is the authentic connection.
SPEAKER_00And people need authentic.
SPEAKER_01We we need as humans, we need to be connected. And going back to what you were saying right at the beginning about perfection, we're not perfect. None of us are perfect.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. There is no one who's perfect. Nature does not allow it, actually. You have to have an Achilles heel. But talking about that, what does it cost you being on the television? That's a really good point. Being viewed, being judged, what does it? I know what it's given you, but what does it cost you? That's a really good question. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01What's it cost you? Do you know? That's a fabulous question. I think, and again, this this goes back to the patterns within my family as well. I think it might have cost me a family.
SPEAKER_00I was about to ask you that. Do you think you could women can have it all?
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_00And what makes you believe that you can't have it all?
SPEAKER_01Um, because I think the mental cost, the human cost of trying to do it all is just overwhelming and too exhausting. I know, do you know what? I know plenty of women that do. You're one of them. But I wonder, just for myself, I wonder about the exhaustion of doing that.
SPEAKER_00And when you think about that, that your career may have cost you having a family, how does that sit with you?
SPEAKER_01Not well, because I recognize that I was so busy trying to um be on this hamster wheel of trying to make it happen, trying to make everything happen, trying to be successful, trying to, you know, succeed in broadcasting, that I've forgot to have children and to build my family. So I and I'm now feeling it at 55. I'm looking back going, oh, oh, I've kind of missed that boat. And now what do I do? So now I'm having to, again, in a sort of flexible way, go, well, how else can I build my family? What does that look like? There's many ways that Yeah, you can there are.
SPEAKER_00You can be an advocate for children in the court system. I've done that, and it's a really lovely thing to do. You can sponsor children, you can foster. There's many, many ways to have a child in your life and be in their life, but advocating, because you're very bright, for a child who's going to court with no family is a beautiful thing to do. Being a mentor, being a role model. Exactly that. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01And you know we've got to remember as well that for a lot of people, you know, lots of people choose not to have children, lots of people aren't able to have children. Again, think of you know, people within the LGBTQI community who may not wish to have children. Um, you know, there are different ways of building your family. And does your partner have children? He doesn't, he doesn't, but going back to you know, what you want versus what you need and changing those patterns, I've always gone for incredibly alpha people. And you know, you you you met my my previous partners, amazing, extraordinary people who I'm very, very good friends with, very alpha, very successful, very combative, actually. And it was exciting to be in relationships with those people because it was it was you know, sort of fire meets fire. But now I've found a man who's actually very calm, very quiet, um, exceedingly kind, and it it's actually what I need.
SPEAKER_00Kindness is so underrated. Yeah, my husband is immensely kind. Yeah, John is extraordinary. Such a gift. You know, we're always looking at have you got a six pack? Are you wealthy? Have you got hair? You've got a great job. We forget to look at are you interesting to talk to? Are you kind are you generous with your time? Yes, but kindness, you know, when I was sick, my husband did everything for me. I was so lucky.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00It was really much love to me. And you know, you need that.
SPEAKER_01Exactly that. So, yes, I've been very, very lucky, and I I again took action, you know, I I didn't manifest him up, I took action to find the person that I needed. Yeah. And actually, it's right now it's kindness.
SPEAKER_00Did you have to share your father with a lot of people? Yes. What was that like for you having to share him? Extremely difficult because he was absent. Yeah, mine too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and people would say, I don't know how it was for you, but people would say to me, Oh, your dad's amazing.
SPEAKER_00Oh, my dad was a saint. Basically, my school was named after him, so your dad is a saint. And he was to them, but he was so busy looking after other people's kids, which he was paid to do that I never saw him. So I had a belief you've got to earn love, you've got to love, you've got to chase love. I had to earn my father's love. Yes. I had to work, I had to chase, I had to prove I was worthy of it. And of course, when I started dating, that's exactly what I did until I thought, well, this is a pattern. I can interrupt the pattern. You know, pattern recognition is so interesting. It's how we survive on the planet when tribes said, Oh, there's four seasons here. One is hot, one is really cold. We need to plant when it's before it's really hot. Yeah. And then water, and then when it's really cold, we'll have all these crops. And it was recognizing the patterns that made people live.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00Planting in the spring, watering in the summer, collecting in the autumn or the fall, and eating in the winter. So if recognizing a pattern made you survive, you've got to recognise your own patterns. What's my pattern? Earning love, chasing love, buying love, working really hard, doing everything myself, not letting anyone in. Yeah. It's just a pattern.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Find it and change it. That I really recognize. So my dad was really absent. Um, and you're right, you know, sort of having to earn his love, try to try to get his approval. And I learned pretty early on that I had to do everything myself. You know, yeah, but the the same as you.
SPEAKER_00But actually, self-made people are the best people. Yeah. Well, they're resilient to going back to that. And they come back to themselves. They realize no one's coming to rescue you. Absolutely. See, which is actually a good thing. I love self-made people. I've had many clients who are very wealthy, one who bought their kids every business. You like that shop? Do you want a restaurant? Wow. They all became drug addicts. And I worked with all of them, and he said they gave me everything except a hunger to do it myself.
SPEAKER_01Exactly, except value.
SPEAKER_00And he wanted to punish them. He he became a raging drug dealer, and he said, I'm doing it to hurt them.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_00Because they've hurt me. I didn't ask for all that stuff. I didn't want private planes and private cars. I wanted a dad who was there.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00And so they gave me everything except a hunger. Except for them. But I'm I'm glad I wasn't given that. I had to I had to do it myself. My dad wasn't saying, here's an apartment, here's a car, I did it all myself. Yes.
SPEAKER_01Yes, exactly that. And that's what I learned when I went away at school at 10 that I've got to I've got to survive.
SPEAKER_00But looking back now, do you regret any of it? No. That's good meeting me too. Yeah, isn't that funny?
SPEAKER_01Because you know, lots of people will say, Yes, I do regret this, and you know, I'm sad about that. But no, I I I consider it a gift.
SPEAKER_00And I think because you're a therapist too, like me, that you realise that you, you know, Shakespeare said only from pain comes art. He never said from joy. Nobody says, I got a great life, let's write a movie or a song about pain. But from pain and loss comes art. Yes. So from my pain and loss and your pain and loss, we became great therapists because we understood what it's like to not feel enough. This is it. Yeah, we have a great rapport and empathy. Yeah. But also we can say, but look at me. I turn my life around and you can too.
SPEAKER_01Uh 100%. You know, I can I can stand up and say, I've survived. Like Gloria Gainer, you know, I've survived. I've survived. And I will continue to survive. And I understand what it is that you're going through.
SPEAKER_00Because we have I'm going to sing a sad song, you're the only girl in the world for me. I can't live without you. I can't breathe without you. You're the only one. I'm going to sing, I'm a survivor. Yeah. And you always want to sing, I'm a survivor. Absolutely. So you're a survivor. I'll have that on my headstone. And my last question, because I know people want to know that, you know, you had a relationship with a man of 19 years, then a woman. Yes. And then a man. Yes. People must ask you a lot about that. What's the most common questions they ask you?
SPEAKER_01Oh, the most common question is it drives me mad because people want to stick a label on you. Of course. So the most common question is, well, are you gay? Are you lesbian? Yeah. Or are you straight? What are you now? No. And how do you answer that? And I say, I'm Anna. Yeah. I'm me. And actually, it's interesting with labels because people will say, Well, you're gay, straight, or you know, lesbian, bisexual, trans, what are you? And I say, labels for me are unhelpful. Your biggest label is your name. I am Anna. And I've loved men, and I've loved women. Because you fell in love with a person. I fell in love with that person, and she is still one of the most significant people in my life.
SPEAKER_00When you labels are limited, you know, we love labels, they're like catnip, but we've got to be very careful to say, I'm the smart one, I'm the kind one. Yes. I'm the good one. I'm gay, I'm straight. I only like Like one time. So if you had to take any label off you, what would you take off?
SPEAKER_01I have to say, your questions are brilliant and really make me think, what label would I take off?
SPEAKER_00And what label would you stick on?
SPEAKER_01I would take off that I'm difficult, and I would stick on that I'm difficult.
SPEAKER_00Isn't that interesting? You know, they had they had a little story about a tribe where everyone had to hang their problem on a tree and then go back and pick a different problem. They all pick their own problem. Really? Because it was so familiar. So your greatest gift and your greatest curse is being different.
SPEAKER_01It's been different. Exactly that. So it's being different, and I think just going back to I'm unafraid to say what I think. And so that has caused tremendous difficulty in my life.
SPEAKER_00I hated being different. I felt it was like akin to walking through the world with a curse. Really? I hated being different because I felt different so early on.
SPEAKER_01Well, this is it.
SPEAKER_00And it was not there was no good in it. It wasn't I'm different because I'm beautiful or funny, I'm different because all the other kids are not like I'm not like them.
SPEAKER_01So that that's exactly right. So whereas you felt that it it was a curse, for me I realised I'm different, and then I turned it into, okay, I'm gonna be really different then. I'm gonna be really different.
SPEAKER_00And actually, no, I had friends at school, I still have them now. I didn't have an awful time. It was okay. I've had a lovely boyfriend when I was 16, 17, 18, but I've had this, I carried it, it was like a backpack that I carried around saying I'm different, weighed me down until I got rid of it. So interesting that I didn't like it, but you quite like it.
SPEAKER_01I loved it. And actually, just just going, you've because you've now made me rethink this. That going back to that brilliant question, that brilliant question of what label would you remove, what label would you have? Yes, I would say I'm different, and I'd remove it, but also I'd add it that I'm different and I celebrate it.
SPEAKER_00Good. Because it's who you are, it's your identity. Absolutely. And one it tells you in here, the strongest force in all humans is you must act in a way that lines up with how you identify you. And if it's not working, give yourself a better identity. I'm kind, I'm lovable, I'm enough. That's a great place to start. You know, all these bracelets, I'm enough. I have it written all over my house. It's really important to give yourself a good identity. If your identity hurts you, I'm difficult, I'm lonely, I can't talk to people. Change your identity because you're going to act in a way that matches it, whether it's good or bad, you might as well make it good.
SPEAKER_01And I remember you saying that years ago, and I put it in lipstick on my mirror, I am enough. Yeah. And you're so right. It changes everything.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And now that you're a therapist, how many people do you see whose real problem is they don't feel enough?
SPEAKER_01I mean, it's sort of, you know, 90% of people, isn't it, that it comes down to they don't even know. Exactly. And again, it's that light bulb moment, isn't it? Of when they realise that, hang on, what does this mean? What's this mean? What's this mean? Oh, I feel that I'm not enough. I'm not good enough.
SPEAKER_00But it's just a feeling, it's not true. Yes. It's not true. No baby is born saying, I'm not enough, but look at me. It's something you acquired, and you can let it go because it isn't true.
SPEAKER_01And I always use that as well with clients and people that I'm coaching saying that when you were a baby, you know, you knew when to cry, you knew when you were hungry, you knew when you needed to sleep. You know, you exactly, they never thought I wasn't enough.
SPEAKER_00Never could a baby born who feels not enough. Yeah, yeah. Good. It's extraordinary. Well, I'm glad you're here, I'm glad you're enough, and I'm glad you're helping clients know they're enough, and I'm glad you're doing shows like Naked Attraction, which actually also make us feel enough.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because comparison's a thief of joy. But when you have that show, you think, actually, I I look every bit as good as that, maybe better, we feel better.
SPEAKER_01I never thought about that. And that's a beautiful thing to say that actually, having met you and trained with you and how you've changed my life around, I've come full circle doing a show like Negative Attraction where people learn they're enough.
SPEAKER_00And they change their life, and they often realize, oh, I thought I wanted that guy or that girl, and they go on a date and it doesn't work out, but they find someone else. Exactly. Because they realise they're lovable, and they realise something else, love is available. Because the biggest things wrong with us are three things. I'm not enough, I'm different, so I can't connect, and what I want is not available to me. So when you go on naked attraction with all your flaws, you realise I'm enough. And people are writing in and want to meet me, so love's available, and I'm not so different after all. Because you see, if your greatest fear is you're different, so you can't connect, that's everyone's fear. So the fact you have that fear means something, it means you're the same. If you fear being different and I fear being different, and everyone here fears being different, then we must be the same. So we've all got the same fear. Exactly. And then it comes back to the human connection, doesn't it? Just the humanity of therapy. Well, thank you so much for coming on. It's been amazing.
SPEAKER_01How can we find you? Well, if people are interested, then they can check out thesetmethod.uk. Um, that's where I do my corporate coaching, my business coaching. Reset.co.uk. The resetmethod.uk.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. It's been your flawless self.
SPEAKER_01Your flawsome self, sorry. Thank you. I l I look forward to continuing until the day I die being flawsome. Good. Thank you so much. It's been amazing.