Forget Me Not

Yeah, it does take me back. So there have been about 30— so it'd have been 31 years ago since the first time I probably ran down this piece of track. So kind of, you know, I've got very vague memories, very vague memories of, of running away.

What happened?

Well, I kind of remember the feeling. I remember the feeling of being very alone, nobody really caring, and there was a fear in there as well, I guess. But I remember walking down this road. This road is a really long road, and as a kid it looked so far, and I always remember that. I've come a long way. I thought I'd run away a long way, and I remember actually going home. I've got this vague memory of me going home and just looking down this road and thinking, that's a long way. And something's just come back to me there because I actually remember thinking, they're never going to find me because I'm too far away anyway. Maybe I need to run away a little bit closer to home.

I want to try and get the message out there as, as much as possible that if you're struggling with things in your adult life, it's probably got a lot to do with the things that you've been struggling with most of your life. And a lot of those things, or most of those things, will come from childhood, unless you've experienced some kind of trauma later on in life, most of the kind of the negative behaviours, and as well as the positive behaviours, come from the things that we experience in childhood. And one of the things that we do as children is we learn to adapt, we learn to fit into our environment, we learn to do what works within our family, and then when we go to school, and where we fit into that kind of equation. And it's called Forget-Me-Not because there are parts of our child's self that we discard or we suppress because they don't fit. And then sometimes when we get older, those parts of ourselves we don't accept or we don't feel comfortable with, we don't let them be seen because they didn't work when we were kids, they didn't get what we needed when we were kids. So, for instance, I'll use alcohol as an example. People that drink will probably realize that they are different when they drink. Generally, that is because it bypasses the conscious part of your brain, your conscious blocks. And although the things that we're suppressing are subconsciously suppressed now, they are still sitting in our subconscious. So once we bypass our conscious blocks, That part of our child self is allowed to come out. So with me, that would be, I'd be a little bit more gregarious, so I would, you know, dance without caring that anybody was watching kind of thing, because I wasn't self-conscious. Because when I was a kid, I was told to behave, I was told to stop messing about, I was told to stop being stupid, and that kind of suppressed that freedom within me as a child to just go play and To be seen and, and just let myself go. So it's been a while since we finished our coaching together. Can you remember what it was like, how you felt before you came and were looking for someone to coach you?

Yeah, I think I was very sort of at odds with myself, very kind of confused as where my future was going and really how to sort of proceed with my future really. There was quite a big fear of taking the step. that I wanted to take, but a lot of fear was holding me back.

Okay. So, and you're aware of what that— where that fear was coming from?

Yeah, I've, um, I had some counseling, um, quite a while ago and was discussing sort of like childhood and issues from that, and I kind of knew that a lot of it had come from there.

95% of people just walk around In the world just doing their thing in their own heads, and that's okay if you've got a healthy way of doing things or a healthy pattern. But if you're unaware of what you're doing and why you're doing it and why you feel the way that you do, and that's coming from a negative space, then to live the best life you can possibly live, it's about reflecting Working on who you are and what's actually going on for you and being aware of, coming out of your subconscious and consciously thinking about, okay, why is this happening in my life? What am I doing? What's going on? And then being able to make a decision there to change that. So then turning your subconscious into a healthier space. So I broke a long time ago. I was— I broke when I was young, but I think I reached a point of keeping these experiences going. So I learned how to do relationships and I learned how to relate to myself from the moment I was born up until this very day. But because it was such a negative experience for me, and I kept repeating those negative experiences over and over because that's all I knew, so therefore my brain was deciding that it was gonna go for what it knew rather than what was good for me. It was probably about 5 years ago that I actually really made the massive turning point within myself. So I've been in personal development for like 15 years now, but it was only sort of 5 years ago that I realized that I was still kind of stuck in my old space. So I was helping people to kind of feel better and helping them to move on with their lives, and then I was kind of leaving that space and then going back to the kind of crappy old life that I was leading because of how I felt about myself. And it got to one point and I just sat on the sofa and the cat came in and got on my lap and I said to the cat, I said, I'm not doing this anymore. I said, I've had enough. Something is going to change. I need to change. And that's, I think, when I took the responsibility for myself.

Yeah, I was feeling very down, very Lost, lacking confidence, you know, always on the verge of tears. Very sort of— yeah, I think lost is probably the best word.

It's—

I just needed help. I needed someone to turn to, someone I could talk to, and basically sort out the problems that I was experiencing and find a way of dealing with them, really. So yeah, it's probably— lost is probably the best word, I think.

What was the cause of that? Do you remember what it was like at the time?

Oh yes, absolutely.

Yeah, that's—

yeah, it was the loss of my mother, my divorce that had— although the loss of my mother was a lot closer to when I started seeing you, my divorce was playing on my mind a lot still, even after how many— I think it had been, oh God, must have been about 10 years. Well, maybe 9 years after I got divorced, and it was still lingering. I was still hanging on, not letting go. And so it was mostly that. It was mostly my divorce and losing my mum. It just sort of all culminated into one sort of, ah, a lot of emotions. Doubt, you know, lack of confidence. Just lost my self-respect. Yeah, that was probably more than anything. It was just— I just, I felt that I had no one to turn to. Everyone that I was close to was feeling the grief of my mum, so it's very difficult to talk objectively with someone about that. I'd exhausted my avenues with my ex-husband because people were sick of hearing of it, so, you know, but they weren't helping. So I just needed something to sort of make me see the light, as it were.

Generally, people will contact me When they've reached their kind of tipping point or their breaking point, so that they can't or don't want to continue with, with how things are. So that they've either felt that they've had enough, that they know something's wrong but they're not quite sure what the wrong is, that they have realized that they keep doing things themselves, maybe, that are causing them to experience the same things over and over again, and they want to understand what it is about them. Or alternatively, they're like, why does this keep happening to me? Why does this person keep doing this? Why do I keep meeting these types of people? So they don't realize it's actually about them, but they keep experiencing the same thing over and over again. Whether it's relationships, whether it's businesses, whether it's kind of career, they don't get what they want. Sometimes it's when they've reached a kind of crisis point too, so they're thinking about maybe leaving their partners, or leaving their jobs, or starting a new business or something, because they know that they want something else. They know that the something isn't quite right, and they want that change. Most people come unspecifically about what they want, but they know that there's something that needs to change, because they've reached that pain point. Where they don't want to carry on the way things are. We all have this story going around in our heads that we tell ourselves about our lives. And it's about trying to tell yourself a different story. It's writing a new chapter. It's turning the page and saying, this is now blank, rather than, this is my story and this is how my life is and this is how it's always going to be.

Because that's what we do.

We look into the world, this is always going to be the same. And our brain's looking for it to be the same because again, that safety in the familiar. But actually you don't. You write your own story. But a lot of the times, when you're a kid, your story's written for you because you are not in control as a child. You're just a child and you do what you're told most of the time. And you learn to conform, you learn to fit in because you're not— your brain's telling you that's what you need to do because we're all basically, as a species, we are a group species, you know. We love to be in groups most of the time because we love to connect. And part of our fundamental survival as a species is that we connect when we're babies, because if we don't connect, we're not looked after. And if we're not looked after, we're going to be on our own. And that's why rejection is such a powerful thing within us as human beings. It's because when we first developed as a species, if we were outside of the group, we would probably die.

You know, I had— I'd say I had quite a good childhood, but looking back, I spent quite a lot of childhood on my own. I had older parents, older siblings that were working when I was kind of little and needed people to sort of interact with. And I think I was a bit like the annoying little sister, you know, and I think with my mum and dad, you know, they'd been through it so many times before and they were old parents and, you know, although they did their best, you know, but it probably wasn't enough. So I did used to sort of spend a lot of time on my own.

And were you aware at the time that it was probably coming from your childhood issues, the stuff that you'd experienced as a kid?

No, not at all. I haven't got a clue. I'd always thought, and I still do think, that I had a very happy childhood. I've always had a good relationship with my parents. I felt good about, and I knew I was loved. And when I look back on it even now, although I can now see certain things, I still look back on it with fondness. You know, I still have a good relationship with my with my dad, who's still surviving. And I feel— I don't feel any resentment towards them at all. I feel I can accept what happened.

Mm-hmm.

So yeah, but at the time, there was one or two things that I realized was coming from my childhood, certain words that they used with me that I decided that I wasn't going to use with my children. And I— so there was one or two things that I was aware of, but the actual proper issues with relationships, I had no idea.

Can you tell me a little bit more about how your childhood had influenced you as a person?

I—

do you know what? I didn't realize it had until you pointed it out. I'm not gonna lie. I mean, I knew I had— I had bully issues, I had confidence issues. I was never popular at school. I was never the one to be with. I was the typical geeky, worked in the library, you know, did all the clubs, did all the organizing. Although I wasn't a very smart geek either. I wasn't even one of the intelligent ones. I was just a plain geek. And that kind of, I think that kind of set me on the path to being that way as an adult as well. Even though I'm a lot more confident as an adult, definitely, as a child I was very suppressed. I was quite suppressed by my parents, as in not being allowed to do things, and when you're not allowed to do things, your friends aren't interested, or they lose interest really quickly, hence why I think I was less popular than some of the other kids and what have you.

So there's this—

there's 2 reasons that I believe are the most important, is when you're born, you're born in survival mode, so your brain is in survival mode. Your brain needs to learn how to survive being alive. So everything that you learn in those formative years, your brain's saying, I need to remember this because this is going to keep me alive, or I need to remember this because this is going to kill me, or whatever it is. So basically it will be pain and pleasure. So your brain wants to run away from pain and run towards pleasure. So everything that causes you pain Your brain then remembers that and says, I don't want that. But it needs to remember it to remind you that it doesn't want it. And also, your brain is slower in the brainwaves, so it's in theta waves, so the brainwaves are a lot slower, which is like when you meditate or if you go into hypnosis state, is you slow your brainwaves down. And that means that learning is a lot deeper, and that's why Kids can learn things a lot more quickly than adults is because adults' brains are— the brainwaves are a lot faster, and therefore information isn't absorbed as easily. So adding together that you've got survival mode and your brainwaves are slower, so you absorb information a lot more quickly, a lot more deeply, because you need to kind of learn as much as you possibly can in those years of your life. Therefore, those experiences really stick, and your brain says, this is what we need to do. This is going to keep us alive. This is what I need to learn. This is what I have learnt, and this is what I'm going to take forwards. And it will throw away the stuff that has less meaning.

So I grew up with people Not feeling people really cared about me, so therefore I didn't really care about myself. I felt that I wasn't allowed to be me, that I had to conform and to fit in, and I then chose a specific way of being in order to be that person. The athletics changed that because it was all about me, and I was really good at it. So I got a lot of attention, the attention I didn't get when I was growing up. And it did really feed into that side of myself. So when I first started to come down to athletics and I started to get really good at it, I was probably a bit of a big head and walked around with like a, a bit like a peacock, I would suggest, especially when I got my first Great Britain kit, because I wanted to be seen. And I could actually be seen for something that I was good at. And it was the first time in my life I'd actually felt that way about myself. But I think it was to an extreme after that because it was so different to what I was used to. If you don't identify what it is that you're doing, then you're not going to be able to change anything because it doesn't matter what anybody else does so long as you are aware of what you're doing, then it doesn't really matter what anybody else does because you can keep yourself centered in the space that you want to be in. You can keep yourself focused on the things that you want to do regardless of what anybody else might be doing around you. Again, as I've said before, you know, the world influences you all the time. People influence you all the time. You're not in complete control In fact, the only way you can ever really be in complete control of your life is to let go of control, because then you're in complete control, because you're just gonna let things happen and know that you'll deal with them as they come up. But if you're keeping yourself in your own positive space, or the space that you need to be in to do what you need to do and feel the way you want to feel, then, you know, it takes a lot to shift you from that. Otherwise, you're always in a fight. relying on everything else and everybody else to kind of influence what you do and how you feel. Okay, so you originally thought that the problems you were having expressing yourself were because of the fact that you'd lost your voice during your marriage?

Yep.

And then we looked at that actually these problems problems came from a lot further back than that, right?

Yeah, I think we started unpacking the fact that my ex-husband's personality was similar with my dad's personality. And with you, I've become aware that actually I have chosen to conform to In all my relationships since a young kid.

Mm-hmm.

And the reason being my dad was really strict and my mom was submissive. And in terms of my needs as a kid were not satisfied, and I was trying to to get that attention and that approval and that love. And I chose to do it by conforming. So then I've spent my entire life living up to others' expectations.

Yeah, I remember, it's funny because thinking back to it, I remember, you know, going and sitting on my mum's lap or my dad's lap and trying to give them a cuddle. And it was almost like that feeling that it was just, you know, not the right time, or, you know, you're being a nuisance, or, you know, what are you doing, you know. So it was never really reciprocated. The only time that I ever actually got any sort of real care was if I was ill. And so I grew up as a child having a lot of stomachaches. Yeah, a lot of tummy aches to get cuddles. So I'd always get a cuddle if I had a tummy ache.

Okay.

Yeah, so I think that was my way of getting what I needed then.

Yeah, you know, that's what I grew up believing. You know, I, I don't— it wasn't a very happy atmosphere in my house when I was growing up, and I think in some way I became responsible for that, and I changed my behaviour. I moulded my behaviour around fitting into trying to keep people happy. Other people's happiness became my responsibility, and I couldn't cope if people weren't happy around me because I thought I was doing something wrong. So therefore, I would try to— again, this kind of falls into the whole theme of the documentary— is I forgot who I was. I think that's a really good way of putting it. Because I became responsible for everybody else's feelings, and I wanted people to feel a certain way so that my needs were met. So therefore I changed who I was, or I only allowed certain parts of myself out in order to make that happen. And if people were unhappy about the bits that I exhibited that they didn't like or didn't accept, weren't comfortable with, I would then put those parts to one side and just be the person that I thought they wanted me to be.

So I think there were certain things that you pointed out that I wasn't aware of that were stemmed from my childhood. We were talking about being popular, you know, not being allowed to go to places, you know, being suppressed by my parents and what have you. And I just, I don't know, I think that kind of knocks you when you're not confident anyway, and then you get a knock like that, or Or you sort of constant knocks, you know, you get picked on at school for whatever reason, um, you know, being a different nationality, having a different name, and all that kind of horrible nastiness that children are just basically horrible things, aren't they? And, you know, they genuinely are, you know. And, you know, where I used to get, you know, at school they used to take the mick out of my name, now I get compliments on it. And it's like, that's really nice, thank you very much. It's like, why couldn't they have done that at school, you know?

Well, as When you're a child, nobody turns around to you and says, you know, we've got our own emotional problems. We really love you. You're a great kid, and nothing that you're doing is actually that wrong. It's just that we're unable to kind of show you how we feel, or we're showing you how we feel, but it's not in a really positive way or quite a negative way. So then we have to then question ourselves. What am I doing wrong?

Why don't you love me?

Why don't you want to be around me? How do I then fit into that? And this is what we have a tendency to do. So, if my relationship experience and the idea about myself is leading me to look for certain things, so I'm looking to tell myself that relationships are not sustainable, I'm looking to tell myself that if you experience love it's quickly taken away from you, I'm always going to find relationships that will tell me that's The same thing. If I've got a belief system which I carried for a very long time, in fact for a very long time, uh, that I'm not going to amount to anything and I'm not worthy of anything, then I'm going to keep looking for that to be made true because your belief systems always need to be made true.

Do you think if you'd had a different environment at home that the bullying at school would have been easier for you to manage. You could have probably brushed that off a little bit easier.

The thing is, so whenever— so I never— so when I say I've had problems in my childhood, it sounds awful because it sounds like I had a terrible upbringing, and I didn't. My upbringing was amazing. I had loving parents, loving family. I had— I was the youngest of 6, you know, so the house was always full. My nan lived with us and everything else like that. It was just a lot of little things that added up into a lot. It's not like I was beaten up. Well, I was beaten up once, but that wasn't at home, that was at school. So, you know, it's not like I was abused as a child or anything else like that. So I feel actually quite, um, you know, what's the word? I feel bad saying that a lot of the stuff stems from my childhood because I really didn't have it that bad. But it was just a lot of little things. You know how when you just chip away at something and it will eventually break, won't it? And I think that's what happened.

Um, do I fit in? Do I decide to Do I take a back seat and actually shut down, have nothing to do with you, misbehave? Or do I conform? Do I become a bit of a pleaser? Do I try to think about, okay, what can I do in order to get the love and affection that I need? And we all develop our own ways of doing that. And I think the internal dialogue that I had was, I can't be a very nice kid. There must be something wrong with me because I'm not getting the love and affection that I need. Because I'm not getting my needs met.

And that's the message I sent to myself, and that's why I didn't like myself very much. Yes, I've called it the window of comfort because It's like when you're wearing blinkers. So if you've learned to be safe in this space, you've got a very narrow window of comfort, and anything that happens outside of that throws you. So you then, you feel unsafe, you feel uncomfortable, and we then have ways of trying to get that back. So, for instance, in a lot of abusive relationships, the person that's abusing, as well as the person that's being abused, has a specific place where they're safe and comfortable. And if you're taking them outside of that, they might use abusive, manipulative behaviour or people-pleasing behaviour in order to bring that back into their safe space. So if I feel, if I'm a people pleaser, that I've upset somebody, I will kind of acquiesce and try and please them to bring myself back into my own window of comfort. If they are someone that needs to be listened to all the time and you need to do exactly what they say for them to feel safe, they will then try and manipulate you into pleasing them to bring them into their window of comfort. So, say for some instance, I don't know if you've ever noticed that some people can get really angry, and then as soon as they get what they want or what they actually need, they're as calm as anything. Because what they've done is they've lost their temper or they've got angry, whatever they've done is to bring you into— back into their window of comfort, and then they're okay. So, what I work with, with my clients is to make your window of comfort as wide as possible, because then you know you can deal with anything. So we need to understand what our triggers are, what our needs are, so that we can say, okay, is that really something I need to do? No, it isn't. Is this something I— that I need to do? No, it isn't. Is this something that's going to throw me? No, it isn't. Do I need to do this in order to get myself back here? No, I don't. Because I can then cope with most things that come my way. There are obviously going to be certain triggers which are really powerful, which may— you might struggle with. But if you've got a wide window of comfort, you don't need to try and make yourself feel safe all the time. So then we can lose some anxieties, we can lose stresses, we can lose the things that put us into low mood that can lead to depression. We can lose the things that take us into destructive relationships. We can stop destroying relationships ourselves because our comfort window is so wide that actually we can look and go, is that really a problem?

Do I need to do anything about that? Am I okay?

And then, you know, you're in a really good space. And the more you can open up your window— The more comfortable you're going to be in so many more situations. It's kind of the key concept behind interpersonal relationship coaching. It's kind of the foundation for how I coach. So the first part is the front wheel of your bicycle, and I call this the TERC cycle. So it's T-E-R-C cycle. RC. And it's something that's used in cognitive behavioral therapy, and it's used to describe the anxiety cycle, the anger cycle, the depression cycle. It's used to describe kind of most, most things that we experience. But because it describes everything, I've decided just to call it the TERC cycle. So it's the thoughts, the emotions, the reactions, and your consequences. Everything starts with a thought, and if you give meaning to something, then you're going to have an emotional response to that. And if you have an emotional response to it, you're likely to react in a specific way. Because if you have a thought that you have no meaning to, you're not really going to feel anything, so therefore you're not going to really react to it. You're going to be quite complacent and not really care. And this is where kind of my favorite phrase comes in, which is the Homer Simpson phrase, which is, just because I understand it doesn't mean I care. Because I can have a thought, I can completely understand what you're going through, but I don't care enough for me to have an emotion about it to then react to the circumstances. So if I have a thought that causes an emotion, I have a tendency to react. And then my reaction will determine the consequences. So if I have a negative thought about myself, I'm likely to feel negative. If I feel negative, I'm probably going to react in a negative way, and then my consequences are going to be negative. If I then have consequences that are negative, my thoughts are then likely to be influenced by those consequences. So then I'll have another negative thought, more negative emotions, I'll react even more negatively. And then the consequences are going to get worse. If the consequences are going to get worse, the thoughts are going to get worse, and I'm just going to go around in this cycle. But there will be resistance.

So on the bicycle effect, that's your brakes. When you put the brakes on yourself, it's because you are used to doing things in a certain way, and your brain tells you that that's the way that you need to do it in order for you to feel okay. And then when you try and change that, The resistance will kick in.

Far more aware of what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. Not to say that I've stopped doing—

We don't always do that.

But because I'm far more aware of it, I can, if I'm in a relaxed state, I can stop myself And think about what I'm doing and think about what I'm going to do next.

Mm-hmm.

Or what I'm gonna say next, more importantly. And, but at the moment, that's very much an active process. So I have to stop, think, and then Yeah. And I'm hoping that that's going to become more habitual.

Hoping?

It's going to become more habitual.

Because we know that hope creates doubt, right? If you're hoping that someone else does something or something else comes, then yeah, it's okay to hope. But actually, if it's down to you, I think when we hope, it's creating that doubt in our head that Well, I don't actually believe I can do this.

I don't think I can do this.

So, it's really good that you changed that word from hope to you're going to keep this going.

Yes.

But, I mean, it's like learning to drive a car, really, isn't it? You know, when you first learn to drive a car, it's very conscious.

You're thinking about the gears, you're thinking about the clutch, you're thinking about your indicators and looking in the mirrors.

And then, once you do several lessons, again, everybody's different the way that they learn, but You know, eventually it becomes a much more natural process, and that's what this is all about. It's allowing your old natural processes that you've been doing for such a long time, and then what we do, we introduce these new processes, and then we consciously need to think about those until they become more natural and take their place within our subconscious.

So coming back to the back wheel, we have the 3 Ps, which are your past, your pain, and your perception. So your past pain will sit with you on your little saddle where your wounds are. So the wounds that you experienced as a child, or the wounds that you've experienced throughout your life, are like physical wounds. We carry scars, but we carry them as memories. So our wounds that we sit on, on our saddle, can be triggered. And they will remind us of our past and the pain that we experienced at those times. We've formed a perception of what that means to us. And we've also— where we hold our little water bottle on our bicycle is where we keep our beliefs, because we dip into our beliefs all the time when we need to. They sustain us, our belief systems. So depending on how we perceive a certain situation based on our past pain, depending on what beliefs we hold based on our Experiences that will influence our thoughts. And if that thought is something tying into our negatives, then we will then likely to give it a negative meaning and start going around in the Turk Cycle. We can change our thoughts to change how we feel, but if it goes against our beliefs and our perceptions, then we put the brakes on, and that's where the resistance comes in. Because we want to change, but if it doesn't fit with our beliefs and our perceptions of ourselves or of situations in life, then we will continue to handlebars go off in the same direction all the time, go around in the same cycle all the time, because we're not able to shift our thoughts because our brain's telling us, no, no, no, no, you can't do that. Actually, what it actually says is you won't. Do that because that doesn't fit with how you see things. You need to again come back to your comfort zone. You need to do what you've always done. You need to feel safe. You need to be in your window of comfort. And the brakes kick in, the resistance kicks in, and therefore nothing ever changes and you keep riding off in the same direction of life. So what we need to do is go back to the past. What is the pain you're still holding on to? What perceptions are you holding about life, yourself? What beliefs are you carrying? What are your core belief systems? What limiting beliefs does this lead to? And how does that influence your thoughts, how you see things? And then what meanings are you giving to these situations that give you these emotions, which then you'll lead your cycle your bicycle to go in the same direction.

Yeah, yeah. I think the other ways are kind of recognizing it. So that feeling that I get, and it's almost like that feeling of being that child again, that really sad little girl that wants to go off and play with her dollies in the corner, you know, wants to take herself away and not want to talk to anyone. So when I recognize that, I do take myself away and I have a little think about it on my own. And then think, right, okay, you know, let's go through this a bit in my head and then try and take myself back.

Right.

And if it's someone that's upset me, then I'll go back and speak to them. Or if it's a situation that's upset me, then I'll think about that situation and why it's upset me. And is it really the situation that's upset me, or is that kind of a similar feeling from before? A lot of the time it is a similar feeling from before. So something maybe that's happening past, and you know, that, that situation's very similar, and it kind of triggers me.

Okay, so even if it's not the same, your brain's telling you, yeah, I remember this kind of thing, this is how you need to feel because of this.

Yeah, yeah, this is how you need to feel. Take yourself away, go and run to your little safety.

Yeah.

Where are we? This is where I used to run away to. I would come and sit up here. I have no idea how long I used to sit here for because it was a long time ago. Probably felt like forever, but it may have only been about an hour. And I'll just sit around here and wait.

Why were you—

why did you come here? Why were you here in the first place? This is the kind of furthest place that I could come to that I felt safe. I knew how to How did you get home? Because over the other side of the road, because that was a really quite a busy road, so I didn't cross that road for quite a long time. But I knew exactly how to get home because it was just a straight line all the way down which took me straight back home, so I knew how to get home from here.

So I learned that relationships are unpredictable and unstable, that good stuff doesn't last, and that I'm not actually very worthy of positive attention. I'm not going to get my needs met. I learned that I'm not worthy of love. That my safe space was to be by myself. So I formed a pattern that I would run away. So I learnt from running away that nobody cared, that because nobody came to look for me, and then nobody really noticed I'd gone. So I learnt I didn't matter. I also learnt that being by myself was Safe. So I couldn't get hit by my brother, I couldn't get shouted at by my dad, I couldn't get ignored by my mum if I was playing by myself in my bedroom with my toys. So as I got older, my return spot was always be by yourself. So all these other stuff, all these other things would go on, but I was always, I would always end up being by myself. I would sabotage everything. I would choose to Come back to my safe space, and my brain was telling me that was okay, even though it was a hugely painful experience a lot of the time.

Changing the grooves.

Changing your grooves. I remember that now. Yeah.

Yep.

And the thing is, it's funny because when I see somebody else in a similar situation, that's exactly how I describe it to them, the way you have.

Could you just describe that further?

Yeah, absolutely. So basically, the way you explained it to me is that our brain has grooves. And so if you imagine the cracks in between your fingers are the grooves, and your brain has always been trained for a very long time to think in a particular way. So, I'm not good enough, I'm a terrible person, I'm whatever, all the negativity. To jump out of one groove and to create a new one is very difficult. And I think it's something that if you're a strong person, you could potentially do it on your own, but you've helped me jump the groove. And I'm now creating a new groove, and I'm not thinking it's not— it's, it's about me. It's not about me. It's, it's— I control how I feel, and I'm not negative all the time anymore, you know. Um, I'm not gonna lie, I, I, I will be negative at times, but I'm still a little bit in that groove.

And I think that's because we discussed that those grooves are permanent.

Yeah, exactly.

So you're gonna occasionally—

I am. I'm gonna flip over. It's like changing lanes on a motorway, isn't it? You're supposed to drive in the driving lane, but you don't. You always go down the fast lane because you want to get past everyone and everything else like that. But, you know, you will sometimes need to go into the other lane. And I think life does that to you sometimes. If you're going through a low point or whatever, you tend to sort of go back to things. And thinking that way, I do it consciously and subconsciously, which is, I find, really interesting.

I worked a bit. on myself. So I was conscious that my marriage turned into an unhealthy relationship.

Mm-hmm.

And I think that was part of the frustration. I expected that once I've ended things up, I would start feeling more confident and it will be easy for me to speak up as again during my marriage. Trying to keep everything under control, I've avoided saying my truth. And I've made that connection. I was thinking, okay, so I wasn't really being myself in the marriage.

Mm-hmm.

And probably the reason now I find it difficult to express myself in other relationships as well, even at work.

So if your belief can override your need to survive, it's probably the most powerful thing that you'll ever hold. So if your negative belief system continues, then it'll override your ability to do the best for yourself because it's always looking to be made true. So if I have a belief like the one I used to carry, which was I was never going to amount to anything, then when I go against that belief, my brain's saying, but this is not what you believe. You believe you're never going to amount to anything. So therefore, I would then have to do something to prove that my belief was true, and therefore my belief would go, ah, see, it's true. So I would do something then which would prove to me that I'm never going to amount to anything, and then I was satisfied. I'd feel okay because I'd go back to that space where my belief was, was made I was out in the street quite a lot, I think, as well when I was a kid. I used to play out quite a lot in the street, so maybe they thought I was out playing, but it would generally be after an argument or something that I would then leg it and And gradually I think I got further and further away, but again, this was the furthest I would come to, hoping that maybe someone would come find me. Because I remember when I was older and I used to have arguments with ex-girlfriends and I would go, oh, storm out, hoping they would chase me and tell me not to go or want me to come back. That never happened either. But it was obviously part of my coping mechanisms, part of my— how I dealt with certain situations that I learned as a kid, that the best thing to do is to run away, and then hopefully someone will show you that they care enough to come and find you. Yeah, that never really worked.

So there's that kind of that pattern then of when you were a kid, you were safer on your own, you were better on your own. And is that the kind of space you then returned to, to be by yourself, was the best place for you to be?

Yeah.

Even though it sounds very painful.

Yeah, it was very painful. And I think like the, the whole conflict thing, you know, my mum was never one for sort of arguments. She would, if she had the hump about something, she wouldn't tell you, she'd just totally ignore you. And so you'd you know, be given the cold shoulder. So again, go off and play or do my people pleasing to try and sort of make her happy. And I think that's kind of— that played out in adult relationships, you know, whereas I either just went off. So I'd either just— if I was, you know, out with someone and we— something went wrong, I'd just leave or just go off on my own.

Until I understood what I was doing, until I could see what my pattern was, I would keep returning back to the same space, and that wouldn't have stopped. And most people don't stop. I mean, if I, if I look at a lot of people that I see, not in client, but people out and about, people are still repeating their same relationship patterns as they've always done, and they're not aware of it. They don't see the need to change it, or the need to change doesn't come up because your brain's telling you that it's okay, it's— you're safe, even though you might be really unhappy. So you might find that you keep going from one toxic or unhealthy relationship to the next. You keep choosing a certain type, and you're like, why me? Why do I keep attracting these people into my life? Well, that's your pattern. That's what you're choosing to do based on the energy and stuff that you're giving out. You're looking for the same result because your brain says that's okay. So I kind of came up with this phrase of spiky and cotton wool. So what we have a tendency to do, if we've learned that spiky situations that are going to cause us a certain amount of pain, they're going to hurt us, but you're going to survive them. If that's what you learnt to do, you'll keep going towards these spiky situations. Now, your cotton wool situations, I say, are the nice fluffy soft embracing ones that can give you all that you want, but your brain's saying, I don't know what that feels like, so this is where we're going to go. I know it's going to hurt me, but I know I'm going to survive. I don't know what this feels like, so I'm not going to go anywhere near it. The past tells us that we are expected to do things a certain way, or that there are— our experiences are telling us that things need to be a certain way for us to feel okay, whether that's based on an external or an internal kind of validation process, it leads to kind of shoulds and have-tos. Now you don't actually have to do anything. You could, I could just sit on this sofa all day and do nothing if that's my choice. But I should get up and do something. Should I?

No.

Again, it's all about choice. So if I want to get up and do something, I can. First thing I One of the things I remember learning in counseling training was that shoulds are shit. And Tony Robbins says that people go around shoulding all over themselves. Because shoulds are imposed expectations. They're either expectations that we think other people have of us, or they're expectations we have of ourselves. And a should is never something you really want to do. I should do this, and I should do that. And your brain is kind of saying, okay, well, okay, I'll do it, but I don't really want to. So it never feels good to should. That's a new phrase. Eat your heart out, Tony Robbins.

I felt I would become a burden if I would say I have needs as well. I grew up believing that what we need to achieve as human on On this earth is just to be there for others.

Okay, okay. And where did that kind of lead you to?

So we know that that led you into difficult relationships, and then we sort of spoke about that part of you that you let be seen. What part of you did you leave behind? What part of your personality were you not allowing to be seen? What part of Anka were you not allowing to be seen because of how you'd learned to conform?

I think I've become really mature at a young age and really serious.

Okay.

And my, my whole values were built around doing. So because my dad's expectations were to be responsible, to be hardworking, to, yeah, to take care of everyone else. So they were very doer and execution type of tasks.

Right.

Yeah, I think it struck me later that I had no values around happiness and love.

What we need to try and do is choose. Okay, I could do this. I want to do that. I get to do this. This is something I really want to do. Rather than telling ourselves that we should, and shoulds need to be questioned. I always ask my clients to say, every time you hear yourself saying, I should do this, is ask yourself whether you should or not, whether you want to or not, whether you could do it or not. Give yourself that option, give yourself that choice. Because we are led to believe that we need to do things a certain way, and we build up those expectations, and then something will happen and our brain says, no, you need to do that, you really should. Do it that way. Yeah, that person needs you to do it like— you should do it like that. And we fit and conform again. It's all part of leaving our real selves to one side, because it's not really what we want. So when it comes to choice, we need to think about, what do I actually want? What do I want for myself? What do I want for my life? How do I want things to be? And allow yourself to choose.

So you know what, I need to do the best thing for me. I know other people might not like it, but they need to deal with their emotions for themselves because it's okay and it's really vital that you do things that are going to make you happy regardless of the impact that they might have on other people. And people need to deal with their things for themselves. And what we want in our lives is for people that go, you know what, I understand that. I understand that you need to do this for you and I'm happy That you're going to do this for you, even though that may not really suit what I want.

And that's interesting what you said then about having kids, because your need then became probably redundant, I guess, at that point, because you knew, well, I can't be sick because I've got other people to look after here. And I guess the person that you were with in the relationship at that time was never going to offer you— because you'd got with that person because they fed into your old relationships.

I had to look after them, so when they got sick, I was the one that had to, you know, It was like having 3 kids in a way, you know, so yeah, and it was that person I got with wasn't able to look after themselves. They needed that person, which was me, to look after them. And yeah, because that's the way I was, I didn't stand up and say, no, actually, you're big enough and ugly enough to look after yourself.

Again, you're not responsible for how someone else feels. They are responsible for how they feel. But we're told when we're kids, you're upsetting me. You're making me angry. And then we take that on board as, as, as a given. I am responsible for your emotions. Some of my clients, it goes to the extreme where their parents are so unable to manage their own emotions that they make their kids, their own children, responsible for them from a very early age. And then you grow up Thinking that you need to do this. I need to do this, I should look after my parents' emotions. I can't see them upset, I need to do something when they're upset. So again, it's all about conforming, it's all about leaving those parts of yourself behind. It's being someone you think you should be. You do the things you think you have to do because they've been— you've been led to believe in a certain way that you need to do that.

And I feel that that's probably where the issues with my relationships first began because I said I've I felt like I should please people, that I should be a people pleaser.

Mm-hmm.

And I think that's, that's where that came from. Um, and I think if I make myself necessary in somebody else's life, then I get what I want out of it. I get that attention and that love.

Mm-hmm.

So I have— I do feel like I have to become a necessity to somebody. And I think that comes very much from wanting that attention when I was little. And the needing to feel needed.

You're never going to be able to be the person you want to be if you're always thinking about how everybody else feels, because all you're going to think about is what you need to do in order to manage their emotions. You're not responsible for how they feel, they are. The only people that you're responsible for are children, because you need to show them a healthy way. You need to show them that They're cared about. You need to show them they're capable. You need to encourage them. You need to support them. They need to feel loved. You don't give them responsibility for your feelings. You don't tell them that it's them that's making you upset because they're kids. But they will internalise that and they will come up with their own ideas about what that means. And this is what we all did. That's exactly what I did. You know, everything that went on in my life, I made a decision about how I was influencing that. If that person's upset, it must be something I'm doing that makes them upset because they're not telling me otherwise. If it's a consistent pattern, then you go, well, I must be doing something wrong here. They obviously don't like me very much because they're not paying me much attention. How do I get attention?

Yeah.

They're obviously not paying me any attention. It's too painful to not get any attention. I'm just going to disappear. The main message of this film is, it's okay. I don't know where this is coming from. As you can see, as a seasoned coach, uh, there are still some things that I carry from my past which Which bring up these difficult feelings sometimes. It's just, it's okay to be you.

I've never experienced anything like it before. I remember feeling very sick on several occasions from nerves when you get down on the blocks or actually when you're just signing into the signing-in area where you get your numbers and things. It's a really exhilarating process. And I do miss that and I would really like to compete again, but I'd have to choose something else to compete in because I don't think my body would want to race, would want to sprint for sure, definitely not. And it's the first time I've stepped onto a track in 15 years maybe. How do you feel about the relationship with your wife? So yeah, it's nice to be here. I was a bit lost actually when I stopped running, I think, because of that, because that was the thing that fed my ego. And then there was nothing. There was nothing there for me to tangibly hold on to that made me feel good about myself. And I would say for 15 years or so, Maybe. After that, I was a bit lost. Well, actually, probably felt a lot like I did when I was a kid. I went back into that kind of lost space. Didn't know what I was doing, didn't know who I was. Again, turned back to women, although they'd always been part of the kind of self-sustaining Self-belief stuff anyway. So my relationship patterns were very much following that kind of line of— I know you could call it abuse, I guess, emotional abuse, because a lot of the relationships I had as I was growing up, after— even when I was at school, actually, I experienced my first relationship I would now describe as abusive. And then when I left home, the first kind of relationship I had when I moved in with somebody, that was abusive. And I'd learnt that that's what relationships were like. So then I would choose relationships as I got older. I didn't really choose any abusive relationships after that, but I chose relationships I knew would never work out. And I knew them relationships wouldn't work, and I always had an out. I'd always be running away. I'd always end up on my own where I felt safe. I massively then turned to relationships to try and validate myself and feel good about myself and just went from one relationship to the next looking for something that wasn't there because what I wasn't doing was looking in the mirror.

Firstly, you need to know that you're doing it, and that's the problem with most people. I think statistically 95% of people don't know. They're just living in their pattern. It's about understanding what you're doing. I mean, Most people come to me because they've reached a specific pain point. So they've reached a point where they know that they want to change, they need to change, or they know something is not right but they don't know what it is. And then I help them to figure out what it is by, again, you know, looking at my past experience. I needed to understand how I worked based on the experiences that I'd had throughout my life.

thinking differently without realizing I'm doing it, and then other times something will happen, I'm like, no, no, no, hang on, no, this is not what I do anymore. And I actually say it to myself, I don't do this anymore. You know, your analogy that you gave me of you getting rid of your hay fever, for instance, by I don't have hay fever anymore. And I will sit there and I will chant to myself, I'm not out loud rocking or anything like that, but you know, sort of I will literally say, no, I don't do this anymore. I had an incident where I was getting quite upset about something. I can't genuinely can't remember what it was. And I stood there and I'm, no, no, no, I'm not doing this anymore. I am not doing this anymore. This is not what I do anymore. This is what I do from now on. And I started— and, and the, the conversations that we used to have when I used to talk in the negative side of things, then you taught me how to say it in a positive way. And even just by changing the way I say things, it's making me feel more confident. It's making me care less about Whether people like me or not.

I think it's helped me. It's taken away the fear of the future. There was always a big fear of the future. There was always part of me that felt that I needed someone there to help me in the future. Now I feel like I'm strong enough that if there wasn't anyone in my life, I could kind of cope with the future on my own.

And that's what we need to learn as adults, if parts of ourselves have been suppressed, that we are allowed to be ourselves, that it's okay to be us. And finding out what those parts of us that have been left behind is really important to being able to say, okay, well, I want actually to be more like this. I need to accept that I'm okay when I'm doing this, and then make a decision for yourself whether that fits you or not, and not live by those shoulds. Don't live by those have-tos of how you need to conform to fit in.

There's one thing that when, when I learned how to do coaching, that the, the process taught me, and that was they used to describe taking on board somebody else's monkey. And they used to say, when you— if you're trying to solve somebody else's problem, you're taking their monkey away from them and it's sitting on your shoulder. So they say, just give that monkey back.

And not only is it sitting on your shoulder, it's pulling your hair and biting your ears and—

Yes, generally irritating me.

Yeah, exactly.

So I'm giving that monkey back now, or I'm going to be giving that monkey back.

What I'd say now is I'd go up to myself And I tell myself, well, I was a good kid, that this is not your fault, that nothing that's going on in your life at the moment is anything to do with anything that you're doing, that people have their own problems, and unfortunately people behave in a specific way, and that leads you to believe certain things about yourself that aren't true.

Yeah, I'm back to the happy-go-lucky person. person that I was. You've brought me back. You've kind of like, you know, defibrillated me. And, um, you know, I, I— yes, I still have bad moments, but come on, life sucks, let's face it, you know, sometimes, you know. So yeah, you've, you've given me the jump start that I needed, and you, you've brought back the old me. And—

Excellent.

Yeah. I smile a lot more, I laugh a lot more, you know, and that is how I used to be.

My confidence is growing in my own ability. I don't feel like I'm not good enough anymore, you know, I feel like, yeah, I am good enough and that I can actually achieve what I want to achieve.

I think that's kind of the key there, I think, is you said, I've now realised I am good enough. So does that mean you're accepting now that you're a whole person of who you are?

Yeah, just who I am and that my real self is alright. I don't need to close her away or, you know, shut her away or be someone that I'm not. And if people don't like that, tough. Thank you very much.

I guess the message Is to— it's really important to understand who you are, to be your authentic self, to be your whole self, and to accept those parts of yourself that you may have decided that didn't work as you were growing up, and that it's okay just to be you. That you are enough, and for you to know that in here and in here, so that you can do the right thing for yourself, give yourself the choices that you need to give yourself in order to live the life that you want. So you don't need to experience the same painful patterns of the past. You don't need to be scared. You don't need to be And that you're just good enough for who you are.

So this would be my number one event, the 200 meters. This is where I would start, hopefully in lane 4 or lane 5. And 21 and something seconds later, I'd be over there.