Episode show notes
Everybody needs a Becki in their little black book! Improving lives and performance, life coach and stress management specialist Becki Houlston helps those struggling with where they’re going in life, or needing support within their relationships, businesses or personal goals.
Simone and Becki discuss the process of evolving, changing and re-energising ourselves during the pandemic, their own personal experiences in dealing with their own struggles with anxiety and mental health, why it’s important to cry and how we can support our bodies in healing themselves.
This episode of Living Life Well covers:
• Personal development and wellbeing during the pandemic
• Mental health techniques
• Dealing with anxiety
• The importance of crying
• Expressing emotions
• The body’s healing systems
• Body language
• Goal-setting
• Negative self-talk
Links & References
Episode highlights
“Who saw 2020 coming? When we wrote our goals about where we want to be five years from now, who would have seen it looking and feeling like this? I've seen people either come in two different camps; those who are surprising themselves and are healthier and feeling better, because they've had some time to focus on themselves. Or those who, for various reasons, haven't taken the time to look at themselves or afraid to look at themselves or the demands on them are just really high because they're holding the wheels of the country for everybody else.” Becki Houlston - 2:11
“I always say to my staff you're either a warrior, or you become a victim. And I think if you take a step back with what we're going through, none of us are going to get this opportunity again, we’re never going to get 12-16 weeks to work on ourselves, our family, our relationships, and maybe come out having a new career or a new path.” Simone Thomas - 3:46
“I think one of the biggest problems is school sets us up with this expectation that there are only two destinations and that is success or failure. And if you don't feel that your life is going on a steadily up climb, momentum, then you're a failure. And that's what leads us to be really hard on ourselves.” Becki Houlston - 6:36
“Even to my young boys I always say to them, “if you want to cry, cry,” “if you want to scream, scream,” show me your emotions and talk to me, even though they're quite young now. So it's helping them to learn that they have got a voice” Simone Thomas - 14:08
“Our body's are very cleverly designed to get rid of waste products, aren't they? Someone who doesn't cry is actually emotionally constipated. Tears are an ingenious way of our bodies letting go. And as human beings, we are not good at letting go. We have learned to control, and we have not learned to let go.” Becki Houlston - 15:24
“We all have the ability to heal ourselves. We just don't make time for it. And suddenly we start doing all this extreme exercise. There’s a point where exercise is health, and another point where exercise is numbing feelings that are stuffed and trapped inside of us. We’ve got really good at not feeling our feelings, that we won’t actually know they’re inside of us until we break out in eczema or have a heart attack, or something really big happens and it’s out of our control and then we break apart. And that’s really hard to cope with.” Becki Houlston - 16:41
“I've also always had a passion for people, but we can all support each other. And the fact that my demand is so high shows how fragmented we've become and how busy we've become and how we've lost our priorities in the world. Because we can always listen to each other.” Becki Houlston - 20:45
“Where we put our energy gets bigger. So if we put our energy into our fear, we're going to get more of it. If we put our energy into love. we're going to get more love. If we put our energy into achievement, we're going to get more achievement.” Becki Houlston - 25:14
“Three ways you can really improve your wellbeing at this time;
- Trust your gut instincts
- Start labelling your emotions
- Evict negative self-talk”
Becki Houlston - 33:24
“Connection is key. It really is. And if we all just took a bit more time to connect with the people around us, the power of that would be massive.” Becki Houlston - 37:33