Resilience Building in Midlife: Proven Techniques for Trauma Recovery
This episode is all about conquering fears so that we can all live a more authentic life
Cheryl: You. Have you ever felt held back by your fears? Especially now, this time in your life? Maybe you're in midlife and you're wondering what would be it would be like to live a life true to your deepest desires and free from these invisible chains that you're carrying around? Or are you ready to discover transformational strategies and inspirational stories that can help empower you to conquer these fears and embrace a life of authenticity and courage? Well, that's what's coming up in today's episode. Hello, everyone, and welcome to ABGW. Amazing, brilliant, gorgeous, wonderful. I'm Cheryl, your guide on this transformational journey. Today's episode is all about conquering fears so that we can all live a more authentic life. But it's not just about having another conversation. It's about a stepping stone towards a life you love, uh, more often than not, a life filled with empowerment and healing. If you're ready to embrace that change and take meaningful steps towards your own trauma, recovery and resilience, then stay tuned because we're here to explore practical transformational strategies. And I invite you right now to commit to taking at least one action by the end of this episode that will help resonate on your journey. But of course, if you're not ready for this commitment, that's fine too. Um, just remember to think about challenging yourself for a better tomorrow then.
ABGW introduces you to Lucy, a woman overcoming trauma through hypnotherapy
This might not be for you right now, but for those who are staying with us, let's dive in and discover how we can turn our, uh, struggles into strength by first meeting Lucy. This episode of ABGW is brought to you by her guru, exploring the potential within. Her guru provides both physical and mental fitness coaching. You can find out more details at Herguru UK. Once trapped in the shadows of a violent past, Lucy, a 35 year old woman, wore her scars like a heavy cloak. Her life, seemingly ordinary to onlookers, was a constant battle with memories that refused to fade. For Lucy, every day was a reminder of the turmoil she had escaped. A physically abusive partner who once dictated her, uh, every breath. Lucy's escape had been her first step towards freedom. But the chains of her past still clung to her. The world outside continuously, almost like a rhythmic darts, oblivious to the internal storm that raged within. Her. Work, parenting, daily chores, all were performed with a mechanical precision. But her smile really reached her eyes. Nights were the worst and the hardest, I think. For Lucy. In the quiet, her thoughts became loud, replaying scenes of, uh, her past like a broken film reel. Sleep eluded her most of the time and she often found herself staring at the ceiling, wondering if the fear would ever leave her side. It was during one of these sleepless nights that Lucy stumbled upon an article about the transformational power of hypnotherapy in dealing with trauma. The idea of delving into the depths of her mind was daunting. Yet the promise of healing ignited a flicker of hope in her weary heart. So summering her courage, Lucy reached out to a clinical hypnotherapist, a decision that marked the true beginning of her journey from fear to freedom. The sessions were not easy. Each one was the void into the turbulent waters of her past. But her therapist's voice was like a lighthouse guiding her through the storm. And as the sessions progressed, Lucy learned to confront her memories, not as a victim, but as a survivor. The therapist helped her understand that while her past was a part of her story, it did not define her. She was taught techniques to manage her anxiety, to recognize her triggers, and to reframe her thoughts. I mean, what an incredible person Lucy is. We'll find more about, uh, what happened to Lucy a bit later on. So today's episode is a real special one for me because, um, lucy's story really resonated with me on a really deep level.
We're going to explore the fears that are holding us back
The way know it's so important to confront our. So what we're going to do is explore the fears that are holding us back, especially us as women who are in the prime of our lives. And let's see if we can uncover some of the strategies to not just face these fears, because that's important, but to transcend them. Whether it's a fear of starting over, maybe an anxiety about rejection or the dread of losing our independence, we've all been there. And the thing is, it's okay. So, together, let's see if we can get inspired, learn some techniques that, uh, empower us, and hopefully I'll share some insights with you that will help you in your healing journey. So whether you are taking a walk right now, driving to or from work, or just enjoying a quiet moment at home, let's embark on this journey of courage and authenticity and get ready to be inspired. The power of awareness.
Let's talk about the power of awareness in trauma recovery
So, as we continue on this journey, let's talk about the power of awareness in trauma recovery. Because to me, as we change in our perspective, we need to also remember that when we do that, we're significantly going to alter our response to fear. I remember Franklin D. Roosevelt, who to me is one of the greatest us presidents they've ever had, said, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. And to me, that rings so, so true, because when you start broadening your perspective, we begin to see fear as less of a challenge that we have to face and more as a challenge to overcome. I remember I once knew a woman who overcame her fear of judgment at work by changing how she perceived the criticism. I remember when we talking to her and she was saying to me that when she stopped thinking about it as criticism and almost treated it as if it was like her being some sort of rock star. Um, and anything that people said to her, she just took it on the chin. I remember she became so much more relaxed about work, not being able to sleep, being able to sleep at night, not worrying about work, or worrying about her performance at work. So to me, this reminds me of a client that I had, Emily, who had a crippling fear of failure. And Emily had this particularly highly stressful job. And I remember when we worked together and we looked about how we could broaden her perspective, and we looked at understanding and accepting each mistake and reframing it as an opportunity to learn. I remember she started slowly taking on more and more challenging stuff at work and being asked to work on certain projects. And this was particularly interesting, this shift in her perspective, uh, which I think, in fairness, Emily didn't really expect. But the thing is, what happened didn't just reduce Emily's anxiety, but it also led to a promotion she never thought was possible. Now, how amazing is that? You're in a situation where you think, uh, there's no hope for me, and then you work with someone and they help to shift stuff a little bit, move things a little bit around in your unconscious mind to the point that you now have so much confidence in what you're capable of doing, that when the opportunity comes up for a promotion, you go for it and you get it. How cool. So, to me, building this awareness, this awareness about how we are, uh, responding to fear and the fact that we are using the power of awareness not only helps us confront fears, but also subtly, subconsciously trains our minds to be more resilient and adaptable in the face of changes that we may have to face on a day to day level. And it's all about teaching your unconscious mind to view challenges as opportunities for growth. And I know we're often told, yes, we should see problems as opportunities. Yeah, that sounds great. Wonderful. But the thing is that the subtle difference for me is when you see it as an opportunity for growth, just like when you were a child, how you learned to ride a bike, you first got on it and you wobbled all over the place and you wanted someone, you kind of needed stabilizers. Well, to me, your unconscious mind is those stabilizers that help you get where you need to go. Unearthing, uh, the root cause, which to me is so, so critical. Um, if you want the life that you love, you need to work on what the underlying issues are. So it's about getting deep, deep, deep digging deep so that we have more of an understanding of the underlying
reasons for our fears. And as you're probably aware, most of our fears are either things that we've learnt to do, we've learnt behaviors, as it's often called, or they stem from past experiences that we have had. And I remember in the film goodwill hunting, there's a few scenes, but there's one particular powerful scene where we see will confront his traumatic past. And, um, just by doing that, it starts leading him to breaking through his fears that he's been facing. One of the guys that, ah, philosophers that I love, Frederick Nietzsche, he once said, he who has a why can live or bear almost any how. And I remember, to me that is so perfectly illustrated in the Victor, uh, Frankel book, man's search for meaning. If you haven't read that book, you need to read it. And I'll be honest with you, I don't read many books, but I remember reading that book for the first time. And I've recommended it to so many people because to me, what you learn from Victor, Victor's experience of the Holocaust and that time in Nazi Germany is that us human beings, we are so capable m of, ah, enduring so, such terror. Even just thinking about it now, how powerful that book was on my psyche and the way that I saw how us human beings, we can be so horrible to one another, but we can also endure so much if we have the right perspective. Um, and that's not to demean anyone's experiences, but we can get through so much if we have the right perspective. And Victor really focused on what was going on behind his fears. And recalling and accepting those deep seated fears from my own childhood was one of the keys to what I would call my trauma recovery. Know for a moment I'd like you to consider the case of Anna, who her fear was. I would call it abandonment. And what she did through the therapy that she had, she traced this fear back to her childhood when her father left her mum. I, um, think she said it was just as she was about to start school, so she was about four or five. And I remember Anna telling know and she was getting quite upset about it. But for her, just understanding this root cause empowered her to work through the fears that she was having in her own relationship, which of course was leading to healthier and, uh, more fulfilling connections, uh, in her relationships. Because she wasn't harking back to the past, she wasn't living in the past. She was dealing with what was hurting her, her unconscious mind, and so therefore was able to move forward. So when we commit to addressing these root causes, I think not only does it help us in our conscious fears, but it aids us in healing our unconscious wounds. The things that drive our anxieties, the things that drive our phobias.
Embracing baby steps can help you overcome your fears, Cheryl says
Embracing baby steps. So let's discuss taking baby steps, small, manageable steps, even nano steps to overcome our fears. I remember there's a saying, um, the journey of 1000 miles begins with one step. And to me that really encapsulates this, because often we tend to be what I call a to z thinkers. We think something and we take action towards it and we expect to be at z and that doesn't happen. And then we think somehow we fail. No, a to z. There's 26 letters in the Alphabet. What about all the others? We have to remember that in order to get where we want to go, we have to be willing to take all the steps and experience them so that we can learn from them. Yes, I know you're thinking, what are you talking about, Cheryl? But the thing is, to me, I remember there's a movie, uh, called we bought a zoo. And there's a scene in there. And I think in the scene there's a saying, 20 seconds to insane courage to change your life. So I'm saying, let's start small. Let's start at a, move to b, c and d, celebrate our minor victories and use those steps to slowly build our courage and our confidence. I remember, um, a friend of mine, Julia, she had a car accident, a minor car accident. But the thing is, it kind of shook her up. And I remember what she did, rather than just get back in the car and trying to drive as if nothing had happened, what she did, she started by sitting in the driver's seat every day for about a week. And then she progressed slowly until she was driving around the block. And then I remember within a few months, she was confidently driving to and from work like normal. And to me, these small steps were the key. Those small steps of helping Julia overcome her
fear. So it wasn't about judging her fear. It wasn't about trying to rationalize her mind and say, well, you've been driving all these years. What's wrong with you? It was about accepting, though that's how she felt. And then taking these small steps to not just face your fears, but also about reassuring and reprogramming your unconscious mind that you are safely confronting and overcoming any challenges that you have. Amazing, brilliant, gorgeous, wonderful, helping women just like you who are unhappy, perhaps even with your supposedly quote, unquote good life. This is a mum and daughter duo, not, uh, pulling any punches as we explore trauma recovery and ideas for building resilience. So you work smarter and definitely not harder to create a transformational life, a life you love more often than not.
Techniques to combat fears include meditation, hypnotherapy and emotional freedom techniques
Techniques to combat fears. So there are various techniques out there to combat fear. There's emotional freedom techniques, which I do and I love. There's the Sekona method, there's hypnotherapy, there's meditation. But as Eleanor Roosevelt once said, do one thing every day that scares you. Now, the reason why I'm laughing, because to me, this kind of aligns perfectly with, uh, these techniques that we use to face our fears. Okay? And maybe not every day, maybe you don't want to face your fears every day, and I get that. But if you've ever seen our Facebook page, ABGW, um, I think it's called ABGW blog on Facebook. Um, on that page, you may have noticed there's a picture of me levitating. And I did that. I went into that wind tunnel because I wanted to face and confront my fears. And I had such a blast. I was terrified. I remember I was so scared. But I knew that if I could do this, it would turbocharge the feelings that I were having, the anxiety that I was feeling, and that, uh, I thought if I put myself out, if I face something that I'm scared to do, it will help me no end. And the thing is, that's why I love hypnotherapy, because it helps reduce people's anxiety. At least 75% of those who see me, who we're working on some kind of anxiety disorder, we get 75% output for them. Because to me, it's all about if you come with the right attitude and you're willing to learn and you're willing to explore. It's just like in a beautiful mind where John Nash, who's played by, is it Russell Crowe? And he uses that self regulation to manage the challenges that he has. And to me, it's just beautiful because it showcases the control that we have over many of, um, the mental obstacles that we feel that we have. I remember a friend, Mark, who suffered from, or thought that he suffered from stage fright. Um, we used hypnotherapy, we worked together to sort of reprogram his unconscious mind to view public speaking as a positive experience. So we kind of worked together and, um, we used techniques, including metaphors, so that he would view that public speaking in a different way. And I remember the first time I would say that he felt that he had confidently spoken in front of a group. He was so amazed, um, by this transformation. All thanks to the power of hypnotherapy, that I remember him sending me about 1011 text messages in the space of about two minutes. And I remember seeing all these pings coming up on my phone and thinking, what the hell is going on? And I think he was just a little bit excited. And why not? Because the thing is, you see, these techniques not only benefit the conscious effort that you make in overcoming your fears, it has such a positive influence on the unconscious mind, enhancing just all your coping mechanisms that you have. So you have an array of things that you can use to reduce any potential stress that you may have in other areas of your life. And I just think that's just so, so cool.
When you journal, you reduce symptoms of anxiety in a way that's empowering
The therapeutic effect of writing. Now, I'm not the world's greatest speller. In fact, I'm a pretty bad speller. But I remember at school, I hated seeing all that red correction marks on my essays whenever I handed in an english assignment. And, uh, even now, just imagining seeing that just makes me feel so sad. But the thing is, since then, I've learned that writing is one of the most powerful tools that we have in our arsenal of confronting and, um, processing our fears. You see, because you
may have noticed already that when you journal, you reduce the symptoms of your anxiety in a way that's empowering to you. And, um, the reason why I think that is, is because the page is not going to judge you. The page is not going to judge you. There's a saying, writing is an exploration, and you start from nothing and you learn as you go. And to me, it's a bit like what, you know, in Bridget Jones's diary, we see her using her diary to moan, of course, but also as a way of understanding and confronting her own challenges. And I've seen clients make breakthroughs by understanding their fears through journaling. And that's why I'm such an advocate of journaling, because I think a lot of people think they have to write reams and reams and reams you don't. You start off small. It may even be a few lines. I remember one of my first journals was a line a day, and it was like a five year thing. You just literally wrote one line a day. And I remember just starting writing one thing that I was grateful for that day. And then I started gradually writing more and more. And it kind of reminds me of, uh, a friend of mine, Lisa, who was going through this really awful divorce. And I remember I suggested her journaling and just to see her writing her thoughts, nurse ears down and processing how she was feeling in a really safe environment. And I remember to me, as she continued doing it, I noticed that she almost started to look at herself in a completely different way. And I remember her saying to me that she felt strong. It's like she felt that she had this newly found strength because writing down her fears not only helped in her processing what she was, uh, feeling at the time, but also communicating with her mind in a way that was helping to release all those pent up emotions and fears that she had. And yes, of course it was still difficult for her, but I remember seeing the difference in her and just almost her realizing that she had made, even though it was painful for her splitting up with her husband, that she'd made the right decision and, um, that she was willing to see it through in a really constructive way and not get involved in all the crap that you usually do with messy divorces.
Reframing failure can significantly reduce fears about failure, says hypnotherapist
Reframing failure so let's do some reframing. My favorite thing in hypnotherapy is reframing. Because to me, changing our perceptions of our failures can significantly reduce fears that we feel that we may have. Um, I remember in the film the pursuit of happiness, we see Will Smith's character and his unwavering pursuit of his dreams, despite all the setbacks. And to me, that just starts us, uh, thinking about the way that we have this unlimited power, this power of resilience, this force, this force that, uh, allows us, and allows someone like my friend Stephen, who is a businessman, who, um, I've known since I was about eleven. And I remember when we talked and he was harking back to the fact that his two first ventures collapsed and he lost, uh, a lot of money. And I remember just giving him a few choice words, let me be fair, and just sort of encouraging him to, rather than view it as failure, uh, to use it as a learning experience for him. And I remember his next, uh, venture failed, but the next one after that was a success. And I remember him saying. He just thought, how can I just build on all these lessons that I've had, all these past failures? And I remember just seeing that shift in him, that shift in his mindset that turned defeat into a stepping stone towards all the successes that he's had since. And it's really, really cool because we're still friends. And he's been able to grow his business. So starting from just him and then a few people into a small business. And now he employs 2030, probably even more people, and they're helping their families. And it's just so, so cool when you see that, when you see someone who believes in what they're doing, and they just need that encouragement to keep going and just forget all the noise, what other people are saying, just focus on what they know to be true. And it's just so nice now, um, knowing that he's been such a success and that he's been able to help other people.
From fear to freedom, Lucy's story was about a journey of transformation
So, before we round things up, let's find out what happened to Lucy. Slowly, the weight of her behalf began to lift. The nightmares that once haunted her sleep receded, replaced by dreams, real dreams that spoke of hope and new beginnings. Lucy started to view her experiences as lessons that had shaped her into the resilient, strong woman that she was. And the thing is, the most profound change, however, was in the way Lucy saw her future. Where once there was dread, now there was anticipation. She began to set goals, not just for survival, but for a life filled with joy and purpose. And the thing is, Lucy's transformation was not just internal. Her colleagues noticed a newfound confidence in her stride. Her friends saw the genuine sparkle in her laugh. And her child felt the warmth, that real warmth of more peaceful present embrace. And as Lucy continued her journey, she realized that freedom was not just about escaping her past, but it was more about reclaiming her story. And that each step forward was a testament of her courage and that newfound sense of self that she wanted to celebrate. In her heart, Lucy knew that the road ahead might still hold some challenges. But she also knew that she was no longer alone in her journey. She had found a really powerful ally in hypnotherapy, a tool that had not only helped her heal, but had given her the keys to unlock, um, a future filled with endless possibilities. So, from fear to freedom, Lucy's story was about a journey of transformation, a reminder that even in our darkest moments, there's always a path that leads towards the light. So we've delved into some real stories of courage today. And we've discussed some transformational strategies. And hopefully it sparked, uh, a light within each of you to channel those fears that are holding you back. And what I invite you to do is to remember that the path to a more authentic life is more than just eliminating fears, but it's about learning to move forward despite them. And as you go about your day and settle into your evening, I really encourage you to reflect on what we've shared today. And you might want to think about the fears you face and consider taking even the smallest step towards confronting them, whatever that small step is for you. Because the thing is, you are not alone in this journey, and together we are stronger. So just take a moment just to consider what you may have learned today, and just think about even one way that you can implement even the smallest thing going forward in the days and weeks ahead. Thank you for joining us in our journey of exploring trauma recovery and resilience, helping you create a life you love more often than not. Hope you really enjoyed meeting Lucy, enlightening the lows of any fears that you may have as you continue on this journey. So if any of this episode resonated with you, please share this inspiration with your friends. Um, and stay tuned for more empowering content from ABGW. Amazing. Brilliant. Gorgeous. Wonderful. And remember, your resilience is not just a trait, it's a powerful force that shapes your life. So as we part ways, may your force go with you, guiding and strengthening you every step of the way. Bye for now.