OK, so how are we all? I don't know if it's the 3rd or 4th week of lockdown. It kind of is all a bit of a blur now, but, I hope everyone's OK in kind of bearing up, as much as possible in the, in the, the unique situations we find ourselves in, and that you have been getting some of the sunny weather we've been, been getting down here.

Now, do feel free tonight, it's been quite interesting. Obviously, before all this happened, no one has, oh, hello. I was gonna say if anyone wants to pop their cameras on tonight and give me a wave and say hello and actually here, then now would be a hello, oh, it's nice to see people's faces.

Yeah, now is a good evening, to do it because I think before all this happened, what I was gonna say is no one has really seen Zoom the meeting, and now the world and his wife are having Zoom meetings all over the place, so most people are kind of a bit more familiar with what it looks like when you sort of appear. At the top, so, if you did feel like sticking your camera on, giving me a wave or being able to sort of see, see each other, then do feel free. Hi, it's so nice to see some faces, hello, hello.

Perfect. Some, some actual humans out there as well. Obviously, in the, hi, Nikki, if you're in the middle of eating your tea or you're breastfeeding, or you're kind of like, Oh my God, I really don't want to be on camera, that's absolutely fine.

And if you wanna just stick it on for a minute and disappear, that's fine. But if you do want to, say hello and leave it on, that's also fine. When I when I'm in coaching groups and we have got the cameras on, it's not like you're supposed to sit there looking like you're intently focused and concentrating.

Quite a lot of the time, you see the tops of people's heads because they're scribbling notes or they've vanished off to go to the loo or, or whatever. But yes, it was nice to have a wave. Thanks, guys.

Right. We've got 10 cracking questions tonight. I'm not even gonna pretend that we're gonna finish on the dot of 9.

I'll, we'll just, I'll get through them as quickly as I can. Obviously stay on as long as you're able to, but if you have to dash off, or you just got tired because it's getting late, then obviously you can catch up on the replay, and I'll work my way through through the questions. If any additional questions pop up, then see if you can do the raising the hand thing, and I'll unmute you, and we can chat.

Right, let us get going. OK, so Catherine, we'll start with you. I know that I emailed a, a bit of a response anyway, but actually, your question was really good, and I think it will be relevant for other people.

So I'm just gonna cover it again. There you are, you're here. Brilliant.

So Catherine's question was, looking at the exercise on goals, she had a question that most of her business goals were due to happen within a year, but now because of the virus, there's no way of knowing when they might happen. And she's reliant on the, the base practise being able to get the building work done to be able to give her the space she needs to set up her area. Obviously that building work's not gonna go ahead until this is all over and it's all a bit of unknowns really in terms of what's the finances of the practise gonna be like.

So, she was saying, should I be looking at ways to change my goals or just accept that I'm unlikely to progress with them in the next 12 months, or so and extend the period. And she was saying that she's sort of mindful that she's been working towards the point of having her own clinic space for years and doesn't really want to give up on that and feels that she's sort of progressed in her current. Not having her own premises sort of progressed as much as she can, in that direction, and that all the exercises on the course so far have emphasised that what she had planned, are going down her own clinic route, was the right way to go ahead.

So, I was, we were chatting a little bit about how do you have long-term goals in, in the middle of so much uncertainty when all we know is that the normal that we did know isn't gonna be there anymore and at the minute it we don't really know what the new normal is going to settle out as. So what I was saying is that I think when you think about your life balance wheel, there will be some roles where you, the goals that you set or the things that you want to happen or experience or be do or have, and, and not so dependent on external forces or other parties being involved or finances appearing or that type of thing. So that might be some of your more relational roles.

I'm just gonna turn the contestant bit down cos it's flickering about and distracting me there again. So that might be some of your relational roles with other people or friends or family members, or some of your hobbies or, or those types of things. So I think when you're looking at the life balance field, any roles that are not so dependent on external factors, then absolutely go ahead and, and stick with setting a 12 month goal.

With, with, like with Katherine's income generating role and her plan to, to open her clinic and, and get started down that route. We talked about kind of something called scenario planning, which I actually used to do quite a bit of in Vets now. So it's a business growth tool that can be quite applicable to personal development as well.

And it's really kind of thinking of a little bit like, sometimes film producers will, will film two different end 2 or 3 different endings to a film. And see, it's kind of mapping out various different scenarios and thinking, OK, well, option A is we come to the end of lockdown, actually the practise finances recover relatively quickly, and although there's a bit of a delay, we might be able to crack on, perhaps just, you know, 345, maybe 6 months off track, but, but still progressing towards the original plan as it stood. .

But then another scenario might be, OK, well, maybe that doesn't happen, maybe I can't progress with it without actually getting the actual premises in the next 12 months. So what could, what could happen in that interim period instead? What would feel good?

What would feel in alignment? And, what I was saying to, to Catherine there was, there's no. There's no right way to do this.

There's a lot of kind of shoulds out there at the moment. Oh, you should be dealing with it in this way, we should be dealing with it in that way, or don't do this or do this, and actually no one can really know the right way for you to navigate through this this time. For some people, actually it, it will be a time to just pause, just accept that things can't progress.

In the way that they would, and to be able to focus a little bit more on other things or things that you perhaps wouldn't have had time to do if you've been ploughing ahead with the original business goals. In, in other situations, it, that might, it might be a time actually to start thinking creatively and thinking, OK, well, I can't progress as fast as I like in that direction, and that any other creative ways I could think of to take my knowledge and almost repackage it in a, in a different way, or, or. I, I think I was suggesting, could, could Catherine think of perhaps packaging something together into an online course, maybe for exotic pet owners, or just, just thinking about using her knowledge in a different way that may or might just be for professional and clinical stimulation and or could be income generating as well.

So, like in vets now with scenario planning, we used to do stuff like the, say, what if the RCBS turned round tomorrow and said practises did not have to provide 24 hour out of hours cover. What would vets now as a company do? How would they deal with that?

How would they pivot? What, what actions could we potentially take as a company? And actually, sometimes doing a scenario planning in that way and thinking, well, what, what would I actually do?

What options could I have, or could I create? Sometimes all sorts of new and unique ideas can come out of that that you wouldn't really have thought of if you hadn't been forced to do the all, what if, type brainstorming. So, That, so it's thinking of, of potentially a couple of different app scenarios, and then coning it back from 12 months to the level of visibility that we have right now.

So at the moment, my hus I normally work in 90 days sprints, so 3 month chunks, but at the moment, I've combed that right back down to 4 weeks, because I kind of feel at the moment with homeschooling, managing finances, looking at the work my husband and I have coming in. I can only really see 4 weeks in advance, roughly, and so we are then setting 4 week goals and then reassessing at the end of that. So it's, it's thinking with several different options if it's a, if it's a role where there are external forces involved.

And if you're not sure on the way forward, we don't really know what goals to set, then now is actually really, really good time to just go within. So take the pressure off to come up with the exact definitive goals. Spend time walking in nature, social distancing, allowing.

Meditating, writing in a journal, having some space, like, normally we have such, such little amount of white space in our lives. And I know that if you've got kids at home and you're homeschooling, you're still not gonna have much white space. But if, if you can't work as normal, and there is potentially even a tiny bit more time, using that time to just go within and not try and force any answers through and just see what comes up, can be really helpful as well.

So, Katherine, I know we don't have, A chat box. So, I can unmute you for a second. Did that, is, is that helpful?

Have you read the email? Yes, I did, thank you. Yeah, that does, it does make sense, everything that you said.

Yeah. Good. OK, that's cracking.

Right, and so, yeah, let, let's see what, you can come up with on that. OK. OK, good stuff.

Thank you, Catherine. Right, Ali, is on as well, evening, Ali. So Ali has a question that has been mirrored by a, a, a few people, so I think the, the response will hopefully be helpful.

Ali's question, is saying that I was doing really well with moving forward and finding, finding I was making a change with my mindset, but I seem to have hit a wall and lost my positive drive. Do I go back to where I was doing OK and do the exercises all over, or is there another way to approach it? And she said she didn't mind me sharing that.

She thinks she can find the link where she lost her flow, and it's when she went back to work and her boss basically said, just put a smile on your face and don't talk about any anxiety relating to her, the accident where she was badly crushed by the cow. So, so actually being able to almost use the limiting belief technique of going, right, when did that, when did that happen? When did that event occur in my mind?

. And the other thing that hasn't really helped is kind of seeing how, almost how the practise is valuing her. So with the phased return, she's realised that each day at work, she works is like a unit, and on-call is one unit and each unit is worth 120, but the on-call is like the whole week.

So that could be one or two nights and the whole weekend, basically just vast amounts of time for not very much money, and. Sort of those. It's looking at what perhaps other people who maybe haven't gone to university for 5 years and become a highly skilled, trained professional, where they're they're outstripping us quite significantly, perhaps in slightly less skilled areas as well, that just doesn't sit, it just, it just feels a bit, it, it can make you feel undervalued, can't it, and I totally get that, with that.

And so she was saying these factors have made me realise that I do need to move on probably sooner rather than later, but now obviously may not be the time. And now more than ever, she's saying I really need to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but how can one person's actions just kind of snuff out all that positivity and drive and how do I not let it get me down so much? So what I would say to you, Ali, is that one person's actions can very easily knock you off your perch and and derail your feelings.

It can really be a trigger, even just for, you know. Looking at, if I look at, I feel like I'm not that sort of flashy on social media, and if I see one of the other coaches who's put an amazing post out on Instagram, I can instantly feel about that big. And I can correct that quite quickly, but it doesn't take much to, to knock our feelings if something pokes into a little bit of a trigger.

And so what I would say is that your boss's attitude has, has probably pushed a shame trigger for you. And if you remember Back to the Passion and Purpose webinar if you've watched that. Part of getting a handle on this is is starting to see what does sort of push the push the button in terms of making you feel small or less than or undervalued or not or not great, and then being able to see, OK, well why has that made you feel so rubbish.

I think also at the moment that there's a. There's a collective consciousness of anxiety and fear and uncertainty, which, even if you're doing quite a good job of keeping yourself well grounded, it's, it's, it's challenging not to be affected by that because our, our energy, our energy and our emotions are, they, you can kind of feel what the hive mind is, is feeling. And so that can kind of, what might have just been a little bit of a wobble in the current climate can feel even more pokey than normal.

Also, And obviously I don't know exactly how long you've been doing the personal development work, but in terms of what we've been doing on this course, we're fairly new in the process of learning a lot of these mindset tools and techniques. And so that means that, you know, it was only a couple of, was it just a module ago that we were doing the limiting belief stuff. So that's like hardly been any, any weeks at all.

And I think looking back, if it, you know, if you've had any of the limiting beliefs around not being not feeling enough or not feeling like you've got enough to bring to the table to make things work, work, then. Your boss's reaction will not have helped that because basically he's he's invalidated your feelings. So your feelings of anxiety and almost post traumatic stress around the accident are very valid.

They're completely normal, they're totally understandable, and actually bottling those emotions or sticking a smile on your face and pretending that they're not happening is numbing, and that's not ultimately a particularly healthy emotional thing to do. So that's your boss's opinion. I would say from an emotional intelligence perspective, it's not that helpful, and it's certainly, you don't want to be pushing down and not recognising and not validating those feelings.

But when someone invalidates your feelings, that just, it just feels rubbish. It just, you know, it doesn't feel great. And with the pricing, again, that's, it, it, it's, it's sort of a tangible undervaluing of your skill set and what you provide.

So again, they're all kind of poking it in the same direction. And it, it just that that can knock us off our perch. I know that, Cheryl, I don't know if she's on the call tonight, has, it has hit some resistance in the last module.

There's been a couple of others, we'll see on the questions tonight where. Right back at the beginning, I don't know if many of you watched the welcome video. I was talking about resistance and how resistance can and does and usually always crops up at some point when you're doing any sort of course like this, where you do hit the wall and just go, oh this is ridiculous.

I don't know why I'm bothering, it doesn't seem important, or, or I don't know if I can keep going, and that would happen normally anyway. And then when you think of the situation that we're in right now as well, then I'm not surprised that there are several people hitting resistance at this point and sort of you know, questioning either their ability or the process or, or both or all those, all those sorts of things. So you're not alone in feeling that is, is what I'm saying, and you're very valid to, to be feeling those things and yes, you can be easily knocked off off your perch in that way.

So we've got a combination of your boss kind of saying, numb those uncomfortable emotions. And then that, and, and the situation at the minute with it and perhaps feeling like it's not quite the right time to be reaching out and doing something different, can tend to make us feel a bit powerless, you know, powerlessness is the feeling of the inability to create change. And it's not something that our, our brains like very much.

And, and the, the drivers of, of that, shame, anxiety, and disconnection. And I think we're experiencing a lot, a lot of all of those things at the moment, with, with what's going on. So, around that, in terms of what's the route out, how can you stop it affecting you so much?

What's the way to kind of, to, to move forward with it? Then it's thinking about sort of the antidote to powerlessness is, is our resilience and it's cultivating a resilient spirit. And so, that a lot of that is kind of what we've been doing on, on the course already.

So the first thing is knowing who you are and being OK with who you are and knowing your own hard wiring, which is a lot of the sort of what we were doing in the first half of this course and the realisations. And, and that realisation that you've had that I need, I need to move on. .

So the And and also the antidote to the powerlessness feeling is that sensation of hope. So what we're looking to do at the moment is kind of shift you back into a place of hopefulness. So you can't change your current situation right now.

But there's nothing to say that you, it, it's a completely inappropriate time to be putting out feelers or thinking or doing more reflective work, or, you know, making a couple of approaches to say, to, to other opportunities or things that you might have thought about, say, I know that we can't take things forward very much at the moment, but it'd be nice to have a conversation. So it's about not thinking that there's literally nothing you could do, and leaning back into the hope, there's three aspects of hope that I talked about in the email for, for this, session. Of Of having the goal, so just the same as with Catherine, just because you can't move forward with it as quickly as you would like, would like, it doesn't mean that you can't still be thinking about that or, or sort of planning for it.

And then, and then maintaining that the flexibility with moving forward and finding a way forward with it and working on self-belief. So I think the. The When you need to go through a recovery process, when something has knocked you off the perch, the first thing to do is analyse it, which you've already started to do, which is look at what was the triggering factor, and then look at, OK, what's that triggered in me?

Has that reignited that not enough limiting belief? OK, how can I lean into the empowering belief that I was starting to work, work towards on that? And how can I how can I sort of take back a little bit of control in terms of what could I be looking at in terms of progression.

And the feeling, the feeling undervalued about the what you're being paid, it's just sort of further evidence that it's the right, a little bit like Catherine was saying, the exercises so far have just confirmed to her that her plan to make changes was, was in alignment. This is perhaps just another nudge from the universe that absolutely it's the time to, to be thinking of doing something different, even if you can't know exactly what that pathway is going to be at the moment. And then it's about.

Nurturing, so part of a resilient spirit is being able to understand what nourishes you and nourishes your soul. So that might be it sort of releasing the need or the pressure to be actioning a shed load of stuff at the moment and thinking what can I do that would make me physically and emotionally feel well. And that could be knitting another sho on the sheep, it could be some nice little dog walks, it could be a lovely bus, it could be chatting to a friend, just anything that lifts your spirit, and makes you feel better and makes you feel connected back into something, that, that, that the work has caused the disconnection, from.

So it's a bit of a, a roundabout, waffly way of saying it's completely normal how you're feeling. It's totally normal to be knocked off a perch quite easy. Recognising that dip and then actually going back and looking at what tools from what we've learned so far could I now put into place, whether that's self compassion, whether it's going through the limiting belief stuff again, to gradually ground and re-enter myself and just get back to feeling in a slightly better place.

and just trying to see if you are on here, Ay sense. Oh, it's sorry that makes sense. Yeah, OK, is that helpful?

Yes, very much so. Thank you. Lovely.

Just just keep emailing me if there's any any more questions on that that crop up. Thank you. OK dokey.

So Louise, bits of paperwork everywhere. Let me just see. We got Louise?

There she is. Hi, Louise. OK, so Louisa wanted to ask, about affirmations and setting them.

She was saying that, I love the Post-it note idea, and I've tried that this week. Are there any other tips or tricks to writing these affirmations, because I'm using them at the moment to try and challenge the limiting beliefs I have around perfectionism and fixed mindset. Yeah, so a a few things, Louise.

The, the first time I came across affirmations was actually by a, there, there's a lady, she, she actually passed away last year, at a grand old age, Louise Hay. She was the person that started Hay House Authors, and Hay House. A lot of the, I think Brene's part of Hay House.

They do a lot of kind of spiritual well-being, mindfulness stuff. And Louise is kind of like the grandmother, of all of that. So she has a book called You Can Heal Your Life.

And that's where I first came across sort of the concept of it, and she has loads of different affirmations for different areas of your life. So that can be, it's quite a short book or an easy lesson. .

The other thing is you can think about the topic that you're wanting to create some affirmations for and just Google affirmations for perfectionism or affirmations for fixed mindset, and then just have a, have a shifty around, look at some images, look at some quotes, look at some of the stuff that comes up, and maybe just capture 4 or 5 of the ones that really resonate, or, that might give you an idea of what sorts of affirmations you could create and then you can modify that for your own situation. Sometimes what I do. That could be quite interesting is, so I've got some here, that are money affirmations.

So this has come from one of my coaches that I follow. And I printed them off and then read through them, and there are some of them that I'm like, yeah, yeah, I like that one. I like that one.

And then I'm like, Oh, that one triggers me a bit. I'm not sure. So there's one here where she's saying, Oh, where is it?

It's just as easy to sell a 2000 pounds offer as it is a 20,000 pounds offer, and I'm like, Oh. I, I, I have resistance to that. So then I'm able to go to my journal and say, why do I believe that there's a difference in that?

Do I believe that I'm not worthy enough of, of, I mean, I, I don't have any 20,000 pound offerings. That would be amazing. But, yeah, so sometimes reading other people's affirmations, you can see what triggers you, or which ones you go and know that I can't feel, I can't feel into that.

So why? Where's my resistance? And then you can journal that out.

Also, Sometimes I just spend a little bit of time each morning after my morning meditation, just writing out some what I would like to believe. So we're we're coming to the hardwiring happiness module, on Tuesday, and it's thinking what I think, therefore I, I am, so what do I want to wire in? What do I want to create as my reality.

And you can do that by either just freely thinking of it, or sometimes I get, I will do it by the pivot. So I'll go, right, what am I afraid of? What am I not feeling great about?

And then think, OK, well, what do I want instead? What do I, if I don't want that, what do I need to believe about myself or the situation? And sometimes, as you write them out, once you get down to the 7th or 8th 1.

You start to feel more confident, or you just start to feel better, or you start to feel your spirits lift a little bit. So that's another way that I do it. I also do scripting, which is not so much the creation of a, of an affirmation, but it's more projecting into the future and thinking, right, I'm going to imagine and I'm 6 months down the line and I my dream outcomes in all areas are, are happening.

And I'm gonna write kind of the diary entry for that day, it it sort of projecting into the future and it's really good fun. It's like you get to be the, the film director in your own life. You can write about all these amazing things, or if writing isn't your thing, you can verbalise it, so.

I remember driving into Exeter Station in the early hours of one morning when I was going to London, probably for London Vet or something, and I just started chatting in the car, imagining I was talking to a friend, talking about my amazing life in 6 months' time, and, by the time I got to Exeter station, all sorts of fantastical things had happened, and it's kind of quite daydreamy, but it's just, you're opening the door to possibility, and you're, and the more that you fire those neurons together of what, what would it be fun to create, what could be true for me. The stronger those, those connections get. Other things you can do is write a letter from the future you back to yourself now and imagine the future you that's the you that you want to become.

What would she say to you right now? What would be her advice for you? That's quite a powerful one as well.

So I know these are not strict speaking affirmations, but they, they have the same sort of effect, on mindset as well. So there's a, there's a few tips there. Louise, does that help?

Yes, thank you very much. That's really helpful. Good, fantastic.

OK. Right, Nicola McCallum. Let me see, yeah, let me, how many knickers have we got on tonight?

So all the nicholas are on tonight, so I think, so we've got Nicky, I'm guessing that's Nikki Lau, we've got Nicola Cornish, so I'm thinking that's the right Nicola, brilliant, . So Nicola is saying, my question for this week is around, it's also about affirmations, but how to start believing the new affirmations we set ourselves. She's saying, I completely understand it's gonna be a bit uncomfortable at first, and she was finding it interesting about our brain only providing evidence that backs up what we believe.

But her mind likes to play devil's advocate. So when she, she said, when I try and adopt new beliefs, her brain has a habit of saying, well, it's all very well you're telling yourself that you're doing enough and working hard enough or good enough. But just saying it doesn't mean it's true.

You know, why deceive yourself, in reality when you might be lazy or unworthy, you know, do more to show that you're enough. You don't want to disappoint anyone. So.

She's kind of saying like, that's in the dark moments, it's not like she's thinking about those sorts of things all the time, but our negative inner critic isn't firing up all the time, but when it does, it, it, you know, it can definitely go in that, that direction. So she's kind of saying, oh, she's also worried about, I guess if I take the brakes off the, you know, don't, don't stretch too much, could you go the other way and, and become too big for your boots type thing. So she was saying, have you any advice on how to tackle this?

So the first thing. It's really, is really understanding the creative power of our thoughts. So our thoughts are creating the reality that they're creating our reality constantly all the time.

It's not something that you can switch on or off. So Our thoughts then through that filtering process, create the perceptions we have of what we're experiencing and that then generates the reality that we're experiencing. So when that's happening unconsciously, when you've not been looking into this stuff, that's just, it's just happening, but you are creating with your thoughts.

So energy goes where attention flows, or what we focus on expands, or what we resist persists. There's there's so many sayings along those lines. And if you look around you now and look around you in your room, look at the technology around you, the phone, the laptop, the lights, the sofas, just everything, every single invention or thing that is surrounding you in the room you're sitting in at the minute, started off as a thought.

It's just a thought form in someone's mind, and it has gradually turned into a thing. So, it's kind of, it it it is sort of like, if your thoughts create your reality, which I strongly believe they do, and science is now backing this up, it's kind of like, what do you want to bring to fruition? So what do you want to be in the process of creating?

So the, the, the gap, the sort of the mind the gap thing, the gap that feels uncomfortable is when you write a new belief. Because it's not yet because you haven't experienced the truth of it. Like I said, beliefs are not truths.

They're just something that you, that you, you said to yourself a lot. So, so, it's kind of almost like what you want to create as your truth. So sticking with the old limiting belief, you'll just continue to see evidence of that.

So it's sort of like if you want that to change or you want to shift your set points on something, you have to be open to the possibility of at least moving in that direction. So, . It's kind of like, yeah, what do you want to programme in?

What do you want to set your brain to start bringing you evidence to support gradually over time so that you grow into the truth of that belief. So that then becomes your, what feels like your truth. So, but it isn't just, it isn't just about thinking, there is an action part of this as well.

My, you know, we have a thought, those thoughts become feelings, the feelings then affect our behaviour and our behaviours then generate results. So, my coach got us to do the kind of like the, the roles thing that I did, but she did it in a bit of a different way. And instead of saying kind of what do you want to achieve in your different life roles, she was saying, who do you want to be?

So to write out, I'm the type of wife who, or I'm the type of parent who, or I'm the type of homeowner who. And so in my, this is back a couple of years ago now. So when I was looking at my environment, the environment that I live in, what I'd written it, so this is not my current, there wasn't my current truth.

This is just who I would want to be, the, the person that in my mind, not I should, but the highest vision I have of myself, does these things. And so in my environment, I was saying, I'm the type of person who lives in a clean, reasonably tidy and beautiful space. That's not really hugely true if you looked around my house, but in my head, that's where I would, that's, that's the type of person I would like to be.

And I also I'm the type of person who has learned to let go of clutter and live with the minimum amount needed. Now, if I turned my webcam around right now and showed you the floor of my office, you would see that this is also not currently a truth for me. But again, it's the aspiration of, I want to get to that point, and I believe I can get to that point.

So to turn that into something actionable, when you've, when you've sort of written out the type of person that I am this person who does these things in the highest vision I have for me, it's then saying, OK, if I'm the type of person who does that or has that, what can I, how can I connect more deeply to those desires on, on a daily basis? So the what would the actions of a person who believes this be? What would they do?

And so in, in amongst that I got out of loads of things, but what was relevant to that was pick up my clothes every morning and put my bedroom straight and do an hour of decluttering on a Friday, the last hour before Eva finishes school. And that actually did start to change my behaviour. So, I was just kind of, I'm quite a messy person, and so this the pile of clothes, I would take my clothes off in the evening, we just end up in a pile, and that pile would gradually grow bigger, and there'd be a mix of stuff that needs to go in the laundry bin and stuff that needs to be put away.

Quite slob-esque. And, but then after I did. Exercise, I was kind of like, I'm the type of person who has a clean and tidy house.

So that means I can spend 2 minutes. The actions of a person for whom that is true, spends 2 minutes after she gets out of the shower in the morning, just putting her clothes in the laundry basket or putting them where they live. It actually takes less than 2 minutes.

I can't believe I was so lazy and didn't bother doing it before. So, but, but now, my bedroom space is a lot more pleasant a place to be, and I don't feel so bad about myself looking at the growing mountain of laundry. But it was through going that, you know, saying, who do I want to be, and therefore, what actions do I need to start to take to move towards that.

So, I hope that, that makes sense. And it's realising that we, we are making choices all the time. So not taking action is a choice too, as in sticking, sticking with the, with the old beliefs.

So. Whenever you, when the negative and a critic kicks it in in that way, it's acknowledging it, not judging yourself for having those thoughts, not judging your negative in a critic, and, but, but choosing to kind of say to it, I see you, I hear you, but I'm I'm choosing to release that thought and I'm gonna choose again and I'm gonna choose a different thought. And just sort of doing that release process as, as often as you have without judging yourself for having had the negative.

Critical thoughts, and then there'll be days when you can do that, and there'll be days when you just haven't got the emotional petrol, and that's, and that's fine as well. So, and then in terms of the, you know, how do I make sure that if I, if I'm saying to myself, you're enough, you're these, all these amazing things, am I not just gonna turn into this big-headed sort of person who, you know, thinking too much of myself in, in, in, in your words. So it's thinking more, for starters, it, I think that's, you know, so unlikely, but also, it, it's asking yourself, well, how could I prevent that?

How could I, how can I stay open to that not happening? And so ways that you could do that would be, be sort of confiding in a very close friend to say, look, if you think I'm overstretching myself at all, please, please tell me because I'm trying to stretch and grow my self-belief, and it would just be good to get some feedback. You know, if it's something professional, you could ask for regular feedback as well.

You know, it's, it's also, that would probably be a good, a really good thing to take through the limiting belief process that we've just been through. So where's the belief that says, you know, where, where is, is there another sneaky limiting belief that says it's not good to. Be able to step into your power or to to own or claim your strengths or to, you know, is, is there something that, that in your history has squashed you down to say, no, don't get too big for your boots.

And where's that perhaps come from and can you do the release work on that as well, to say that it says no one me staying small and not stepping into the potential that I have because then You know, that's depriving those around you of you stepping into your gifts and being able to give more and feel happier and be the best version of you. So does that, how, I'm just gonna unmute you for a second, does that help, Nicola? Yeah, definitely, I have a massive limiting belief that I'm Yeah, but like I shouldn't, I shouldn't.

Be too confident and I shouldn't portray myself as having particular skills or whatever in case I don't, in case I overstep, in case I then disappoint. Basically, I'm terrified of disappointing anybody and so I suppose looking at it from me, yeah. I guess looking at it from the angle of being like, Well, OK, I might not disappoint anybody, but I might not be able to do anything for them, anything if I don't try and step into some of these things might be helpful.

Yeah, absolutely. And there might be other sneaky limiting beliefs in there as well, as in it's, it's not OK. Yeah, no, I definitely, yeah, as in stretching yourself, being good at something doesn't mean that you don't also get things wrong.

So yeah, it's sort of there it's look, you know, so that's where actually the inner critic is really useful because it can bring up or like, oh, OK, there's another sneaky little limping leaf. Right, let's grab that bugger and work through that. And that, that process is, is a continual thing.

Yeah, definitely. And I really like the, like, the thoughts kind of being. Becoming reality and things, so I guess, yeah, you know, you're not gonna suddenly become, I don't know, really lazy or something you see yourself as that person or unless you have no insight and I suppose we hopefully wouldn't be doing the course if we didn't have any insight exactly every single person, so yeah, no thank you, that's been really helpful.

Very. Brilliant, fantastic. Oh, you've you've disappeared.

Oh, Rosie's raised a hand. Let me see, . Right.

Let me see. Now, Rose, I'm just gonna unmute you. Hello, my lovely.

Yeah, I hope you don't mind me piping in. I just had a thought, so I don't know if other people have the same as me, but for me, if you demonstrated how much you could do as a child at school, you got bullied like a, you got bullied a lot by other children, so there was a very strong, I've just realised there's a really strong thread for able children at school to you can downplay what they can do. Like, I spent all of my schooling, like, being, like, getting the right answers, but not telling, like not telling everyone else how quickly you understood things or whatever.

And I wondered, like, I presume we're all quite able here, maybe other people have that experience as well. A real like, don't show off how much you can do on. On you as a conditioning thing, I think.

Absolutely, because for a child, connecting with your peers and fitting in with your peers is survival. It it it equates to survival from a physiological perspective. So, so demonstrating being clever and that resulting in being bullied is gonna imprint in the subconscious as it's not safe to, it's not safe to claim that to to show that you have, that level of intelligence.

That's a really, really powerful, useful insight, Rosie, thank you. Thanks Rosie. I've just realised that's definitely the case with me.

I hadn't really thought of it that way before. I'd always thought that just came from that kind of, you know, that value you're imbued with when you're a child is like, you know, put everybody else first and, you know, don't show off and things, which I never really had a tendency to do anyway, but yes, now you say. I would stop myself right answers and stuff, yeah.

Yeah, brilliant, absolutely, and it's interesting in in Gay Hendrick's book The Big Leap, where the Zon of Genius stuff comes from, he's got a whole section of the reasons why we don't step into our zone of genius, and it can be to do with not not wanting to outshine a sibling, not wanting to disappoint. Or there's there's, there's sort of quite a lot of things that actually are really in alignment with what you've just said, Rosie, that, that stop us from feelings it that's the reason why we have an upper limit, because we're like, I can take it to this level. I don't feel safe taking it to that level for for whatever reason, .

And that's the lovely thing about the this personal development stuff is the more knowledge you have about this, and the more you understand how it all works, the more you can just keep releasing all of the baggage that's weighing you down and stopping you from being able to just flow forward with your life and and feel contented and happy. So brilliant, thank you ladies, that was awesome. All right, oh, Rosie, you're, you're up next actually, .

I have a wig, OK. So, let me just find where you've gone. Quite a lot of people on the call tonight.

Yeah, there you are, brilliant. So Rosie's saying, I'm starting to think I could meet quite a lot of my immediate needs by staying in the current role. That certain things need to shift in order for me to resolve the stuff that chronically stresses me.

However, I'm extremely conflict averse, so the idea of negotiating with management terrifies me. Any ideas or resources you would recommend to work on becoming less conflict averse. Great question.

So there is, I will send you the link. I actually I actually wrote a blog post on this topic a while ago. It's called Asking for What You Want.

on, on my website. So there's a kind of five-step process that that gives a really nice structure to these sorts of things, Rosie, where, where there's anything where you've got some needs. They need to be expressed.

You don't know how they're going to be received. You're feeling conflict with us or you're concerned about how others might perceive you, how that conversation might go, what if it doesn't go well, all, all of that stuff that makes this conflict averse. And being able to kind of take that into a five-step process can just give, give, give some much needed structure around something that can feel really scary.

So the the five steps of, of the process. The, the first thing is sticking to the, is finding the data of the situation. So that literally the facts.

So whatever it is that you're, so let me just unmute you for a second. Unmute. Rich, can you help me unmute Rosie or Rosie, can you unmute, oh, there we go, perfect.

So, Rosie, can you just give me an example of one of the things that needs to change, for, for example? So I have, a chronic chronic conflict with my boss about deleting my catch up slots. Ah, yes, which are some something that I negotiated.

Well, we all have. I negotiated some extra, to help me manage anxiety in the mornings. Obviously, at the moment, it's, in some ways quite nice, because I can't plan anything, can't worry about anything, just firefight at the moment.

But, in day to day life, I like to be able to. To structure my own diary. And I have had some bosses say that I'm allowed to do that, but then one particular, I have 44 vets who are senior management.

One of them in particular will still alter my diary without asking me to change it by the time I've got into work, that sort of thing. So it's trying to alter his behaviour, so he stops doing that. Yeah.

And when you say you've had conflict with him about this before, what have you tried so far? So I've brought it up in my annual review, . The last two years, I think, I have spoken to the practise manager about it, but because I'm too conflict averse, asked her not to speak to him directly.

I have. Spoken to the head nurse who's spoken to him about it, and she helped me manage by putting them back in again. If we explicitly talk to him about it, he'll stop for a bit and sort of treat me like he thinks I'm going to burst into tears all the time, and then he forgets again and starts taking them out.

Or it just goes down his priority list, I suspect. It just goes, I think it probably just goes down his priority list. I think once he thinks I'm not about to have a breakdown and leave, he stops caring again.

Yeah, OK. So it's sounding like he's needing repeat boundary setting, and, you know, that kind of, you're, you're putting your boundary in place and then it's lapsing again and it's needing to be, to be reset. So in terms of taking that as an example of, of the process, then the first thing is just sticking absolutely to the purely the facts.

So that might be be articulating, as you just have, have done to me in terms of what has specifically been happening. And also what steps, what actions you have taken so far, but with no emotion, no judgement, no, no anything, that's literally sticking to the facts. Because that, that's kind of the incontrovertible, these events have happened.

No one can argue with that. Then the second, the second phase, and again, I'll send you the links, you don't have to write all this down, the, the blog kind of explains all these steps. The second one is then, it is talking about how it's made you feel.

So that's, I know that's not something that happens hugely in vet practises, but we should be doing, and there's more of that stuff coming out when you look at things like Schwartz, Schwartz, rounds, you know, the addressing the emotional impacts of what is already a really emotional job. So that's about just, and you can do that really calmly and and assertively, it doesn't have to be dramatic or conflicting or anything, it's just saying these things have happened. This is the impact and the effect it has on me, and, and that's where you can, that's, that's where that is, your own personal, this is how it makes me feel, this is how it affects me, this is how that then has a knock-on effect either for the rest of the team or for patient safety or for my well-being or, or whatever it is.

So what is the impact of those, that, that set of circumstances. And then the third thing is thinking, what is, what's the outcome you're looking for? What's the actions that need to happen to create, to resolve this, which I'm guessing is just that he stops doing it and it doesn't lapse.

Yeah, pretty much. As in I need to, at the moment, part of the problem is that this keeps, it's great when it's in place, but it keeps lapsing, so. That's that that's quite inconsistent for me and that that has this effect.

What I would like is, and that's the thing that especially as women, we are really rubbish at saying this is what I want. This is what I would, this is what I need, and, and knowing that it's OK to, people can say no, people can disagree with it, but you are not wrong for having that need. And not wrong for knowing what it is that you want and actually clarity on what needs to happen, and it doesn't have to come across in a pushy way at all, it's just sort of what I'm looking for, or what would really help me with this, you know, you can soften it, would be these things.

What, how, what, how can we work together? The, so again it's, it's looking at. Conflict is a challenging word because conflict just implies that there's gonna be a disagreement, there's gonna be an, you know, even just the word conflict makes, gives me butterflies in my tummy.

So, you know, from an NLP perspective, conflict is a, is a strong word. So it's thinking about diffusing that as a concept of, of conflict of instead of seeing it as a conflict, seeing it as you, you're being. Assertive, which just means you're recognising your own needs, and it's OK for you to ask for those needs to be met, because actually, ultimately, that's better for their practise and their business.

Because if you keep repeatedly being, you know what your needs are, you can function absolutely fine as a veterinary surgeon working with anxiety with these conditions in place, you know, most of the time I would. But those conditions need to be in place. Just as if a vet had a really dodgy back, then they might need one of those stan yuppi consult, you know, whatever, whatever adaptation is needed, it's no different when it's a mental health challenge rather than a physical challenge, and it's completely OK.

They have an obligation to provide that to you, and so it's OK for you to ask for that. So that third step is, well, the third step is working out by yourself what it is that you want. And step 4 is then, is then taking action to arrange that.

So, so that would be thinking about what would feel like the best route for you to have that conversation. So if having that conversation directly with him. It just feels too difficult.

It's thinking about, obviously he needs to know about this, but if that feels too much, then it might be thinking, well, who would be the best person for me to have this initial conversation with to be agreeing actions and then asking for that meeting and setting it up, because just discussing this once every 12 months is not enough. And, and, and that, and that's about taking control back and being, being proactive, which I know is really difficult because. Kind of like, I'm sure you could think of a million other things that you'd probably rather do.

So that's the kind of taking courage, you know, the leaning into the vulnerability and the discomfort, and knowing that, yes, it's going to feel uncomfortable, but you can, you can tolerate that discomfort and you can come out the other side. The, and the third, the, the final step, which is probably the most important is. Being willing to release your attachment to the outcome.

And I think what I mean by this is leaning back into your self-worth. So the reason that we quite often, you know, one of the contributing factors to conflict aversion is that what will people think, what will they, will they judge me, will they then not like me, you know, we, we. Are very, very hung up on the reaction that we get.

And if that's positive reaction, that's fantastic. But if that's a negative reaction, we're gonna be wracked with all sorts of horrible, difficult emotional feelings of, oh my God, should I have asked that? Was it OK?

What if they don't like me? What if I lose, you know, we can go down the rabbit hole. And actually, it's, it's reining that back in in terms of what's the worst case scenario likely to be that he says no or it keeps lapsing.

Could I, could I cope with that? Probably wouldn't be very great, but, but it's it's, it's really trying to be not go down the rabbit hole, but also owning your own sense of self-worth such that you are, you can sort of gently release. The, so if it goes, if obviously hopefully that conversation would go well and you'd be able to say, look, how can we work together to agree some actions, what needs to happen to stop this lapsing?

Can I, I realise it might be an inadvertent lapsing, even if it isn't. What's my mechanism? Can I feed that straight back in so that we can immediately correct it so it's not, you know, being prolonged, you know, what's what, and it's turning that into how can almost how can you make it into a system or a process that's then built in.

To the practise, and, and, and also coming at it from, instead of seeing it as conflict and you're on different sides of the table, try and think about it as you're coming around and you're on the same side of the table, putting a problem in front of them saying, guys, we have this, there is an issue, can we work together? I'm looking for a win-win. So when you're, you're not trying to.

Stop him getting his needs met, and hopefully he's not purposefully, willfully trying to stop you getting your needs met. So when you can think, when you can go into that going, I'm looking for a win-win here, and then that feels less conflict-y. And, and then it's about leaning into the shame resilient stuff.

So, so rather than avoiding having that conversation because you're really worried about, if it doesn't go well, that's just gonna feel so emotionally painful. Rather than trying to do whatever you, you know, avoiding any potential conflicts ever, it's more about leaning into on the very odd occasion that it might occur. And I think it possibly wouldn't become overtly conflictty.

Maybe as in shouting or anything like that, it just might be, you might not get the outcome that you want, but it's thinking. When you have a bad, if you did get a bad reaction to it, then how can I, what steps can I take to reset myself, and that's those four steps of showing resilience in terms of looking at what it's triggered. Analysing that, talking about it with other people and you know, there's those four steps, of that because, yeah, so what's that bringing up for you?

I think that's definitely useful. One of the things I had wondered about is whether It would be helpful or more antagonistic to maybe invite, another one of these, senior vets into a meeting, for example, because he works, it's mainly when I'm working at the branch, he works there as the only boss there. So he doesn't, the problem I have is he doesn't have any accountability.

He does have accountability, but not in terms of the diary and things stressing people out, because I don't think I'm the only person that this stresses out, but I don't think the other bosses know. Particularly that it's happening. So I wondered if having someone who's got the sort of equal level of, what's the word, power, for want of a better word, .

Involved in, like, knowing, it feels like telling tales from one parent to another, but I feel like nobody knows that he's doing this, and I think it's, it doesn't, I'm sure it doesn't just stress me out, it stresses the other more junior assistants than me out as well. Absolutely. And it has negative implications for the practise if it goes on and you can't, you, you know, tweak and change the things that you need to change.

And ultimately they, they would probably lose you from the practises, and that's not good for them either, it's not good for you. So, so it really is, it, this is going to be helpful for them to bring this to. Resolution.

And you're just looking for a process or a system, really. So it's not about the person, it's not about the individual. It's about the process.

And how can we, can we create a process together that that stops this from happening or that I can correct it quite quickly if it's slipped so that I can maintain my own well-being and show up for you guys in the way that I want to. In some ways, hopefully, I'm hoping the fact that we've had to work so differently over the last month and over the, you know, future couple of months at least will mean that I can. I'll have been, it'll have been long enough away that I it's actually happened that I can be less emotional about it.

Yeah, my issue is trying to discuss it in a dispassionate way. Absolutely. And that's where taking it through those four steps and using the 4 steps literally to write yourself a script, write your notes, write the structure of how you're gonna have that conversation.

That's, that's kind of, that you wouldn't go into any normal business meeting outside of the vetting profession without having notes. So I would I would absolutely take notes in with you with that structure so that you're not, if you get a limbic hijack in the meeting, because it's a bit kind of like, oh, you can just, you know, read what you You've got in your notes and, and, and get that out. And that's, that's actually practising authenticity.

That's, that's being in your integrity by, by carefully thinking ahead of time, what, what is your truth and what do you need to communicate to them. So, yes, if I forget anyone, just give me a prod and I'll send you the link, to, to that process. Is that all right, Rosie?

Yeah, cool. Thank you. Good.

Cool beans. Oops. Right.

Marvellous. So Cheryl, you're up next. Cheryl is here.

Hi Cheryl. So. Cheryl's had a few bits actually that were quite interesting.

Let's me Cheryl piece of paper. Obviously I've got affirmations, journals, all sorts all over the place, . .

So, Yeah, so Cheryl's question is that the It's around limiting beliefs, so the stuff we were doing last time, and she's got a few that are sort of quite connected. So she was saying that there's a little run of them, kind of, I don't understand, it's too complicated. I'll never be able to learn that.

I don't know anything about it. I can't do it. So these were things that came out when she did that exercise.

And she was saying these seem to revolve around my capacity for learning. Can you shed any light on this one, please? And she was saying, I'm intelligent and I've achieved a good level of academic education, but it seems to be around things like technology, computers, finance, and I can't work out where it came from or what to do about it.

So one thing that sprang to mind when I read that is actually. I've been thinking of the profiling that I do, so the psychometric profiling that I do that I talked about in the first module, I think, that looks at those four thinking areas, thinking structures in our brain, each of those 4 different quadrants in our brain are responsible for a different type of thinking. And actually, technology, computers, and finances all all sit in the same part of the brain.

So, and, and we, we have brain dominance patterns. So just like you have a dominant hand, a dominant eye, a dominant foot. We have a dominance of how we like to use the thinking structures in our brain.

And that has, it doesn't really have anything to do with competence. So you can stretch into non-dominant parts of your brain and be competent in them and figure them out and do them. But when you spend a little bit like we said in, in some of the first modules, when you spend time in an area that's not your brain's natural sort of bent, then it's quite exhausting, or it, it just feels like really hard work.

Whereas when you're spending time in an area of your brain that your brain really likes to use, that will tend to energise you and, and light you up. So, I was just wondering whether the, the, that's, that's, that quadrant, that, that is the upper right neocortex quadrant, whether that's just not, perhaps not your brain's naturally preferred style. And therefore, when you come across things that are learning that's required in one of those areas, it just might feel quite a bit clunkier or it just might not make sense to your brain, or you just might not be able to to see those concepts clearly compared to other areas of your brain where where it.

It flows much more easily. And like you say, you, you know, you are intelligent. You have achieved a really good level of academic education.

So we know you can learn. We know your brain can learn. It's not like it can't learn.

And, but we all learn in different ways and have different preferences of our learning style as well. So that some people learn better through visual input, some people learn better through auditory, or hearing. Some people learn better through using their hands, so kinesthetics or whatever you call it.

And I can't remember what the fourth learning style is. So, and like I say, it, one possibility is that it may just be that those things fall into an area that your, that your brain just finds a little bit more challenging to make sense of. But then I would say it's probably, it probably is linked in with a shame trigger that's, that then means that it, that instead of Either getting additional help or or sticking with it or persisting with it for long enough to just get a handle on those things, that there's, there may be a shame figure in there somewhere that that makes your brain default to just, oh I just can't do it.

It's too complicated. I'm never going to get my head around that. And, and going into a bit of a fixed mindset of I just that that's not my bag, I can't do it.

So, with that part of, so what was I gonna say about that? Yeah, so. So from from a practical perspective, we know that you can learn.

And so with those things, if, if you come across them and they're needed for something, it might just be that you do need to ask someone to explain it to you twice instead of once, or get some hands-on support, or just spend that little bit longer wrapping your head round it than perhaps you would if it was if that learning was in a different type of modality or or style or area. But then it will be about looking at doing the limiting beliefs work as you have done in terms of looking at why am I, what, why am I saying those things to myself, about it. And really the So it may well be that there is something that's triggered that because like I was saying to Ali, when Ali was saying, how can one person's comment just completely make you put you know, pop your positivity like a balloon and you just go, hm.

And it really doesn't take much. That's the thing, you know, quite often when I'm doing this limiting belief work one on one with clients and I'm saying, where do you think that belief has come from, they'll say a lot of stuff like, well, it sounds ridiculous, but, and then they'll tell me a small story from something that happened at school, and that's enough. So it may well be that.

That that there's something that perhaps that you're you're not perhaps consciously remembering an off the cuff comments at school or just something in the area of tech or CDT or, or, or it wouldn't have been finance, obviously, but that that gave you a message of you're not good at this or you can't handle it or you're not, you know, that that's actually if you can't remember the specific event, but it may well have have happened and. To be honest, you don't need to be able to absolutely pinpoint the event to be able to do the, the, the flip on it. So just as I was saying, hopefully some of the stuff I was saying to Nicola McCallum would have made sense around this as well in terms of we get to choose.

So, so I'm wiring it, like I said about the social media thing, one belief that I'm wiring in at the minute is a massive big flip for me, which is, it's about showing up on social media and connecting with people because I'm quite introverted because it's not naturally my thing. So I'm at the moment working on affirmations and beliefs about my ability to create content, my ability to enjoy it. All things that are not currently truths, but I want to stretch towards them being true for me.

And so I'm doing the work on that. So, again, it's thinking, of how can you put yourself in a growth mindset, how can you, what, what would you like to believe about your abilities in those particular areas? And, and again, then you've got a choice.

So when I'm doing profiling work with people, if we come across a quadrant in their brain that's just not their preferred way of thinking, you've got two choices there. Part of that, it can just be to go, do you know what, that's my hard wiring, and actually don't really enjoy those things, and I don't really have a massive desire to become super proficient in them, then that's absolutely OK. And that means that you just outsource that, you pay someone else to do it, or you don't take on job roles where that's the predominantly needed skill.

. Or the other thing is, if you do want to stretch and progress into those areas, it's about knowing that you absolutely can. And and the growth mindset thing says you don't have to be naturally good at it. You don't have to be brilliant at it straight away.

You just need to know where to go to get help and support and then gradually increase your skill level in it. And, and we've got evidence that says you can learn and you can achieve. So, where are you?

Let's see. Do you want to unmute yourself, Shell, does that help? It does.

Thumbs up, cool beans. OK. And there, there's quite a lot of other, other bits that you sent through, Cheryl, that were really helpful, but I'm just gonna, I'm just being a bit mindful of time.

So I'll see if we get time to cover those. If not, I will email them back to you, as well later on. OK, so that's Cheryl, then we've got Becca Howell.

Becca, you're on the call. Hi there. So Becca's saying, I'm thinking I would like to have a portfolio career, doing something vet related part time and doing something arty or creative the rest of the time.

I've always liked making greetings cards for my family and friends, and a couple of years ago, I got brave and had a stall at a craft fair to sell my cards. Whilst it wasn't a disaster, I did struggle with it making me feel like my art wasn't good enough, if someone didn't want to buy. And I realised I shouldn't be basing my self worth on someone else's approval, but it's tricky.

Yeah, it is, isn't it? I also worried about making my hobby into a moneymaker, that it might ruin my enjoyment of it. And then I would have lost a hobby too.

So how do I know when to leave something as a hobby and just enjoy it for what it is? So A little bit, so there's a few things in there, Becca. The first thing is, is understanding creativity and art and making something that has never existed before.

And then putting it out into the world is a really vulnerable thing. So it's a really good thing for us to be doing because it's, it's kind of like, yeah, it, it's, it's every time you do anything creative, and then, and then share that with someone when it hasn't existed before, that's a little part of you that's going out into the world. And so naturally, that does come with, when we think about vulnerability in terms of risk, uncertainty and emotional exposure, then, then it, it does come with those things.

So how to kind of help with that, because, because also when you look at Bernet's research across the board, every single person who fell into the wholehearted category, ie those who were living and loving with their whole hearts and being willing to be vulnerable, all of them did some form of creative pursuits. Not necessarily all to make and sell or for other people to see, but they engaged in some form of creative activity. Whether that was typical art type things or whether it was cooking or photography or video making or scrapbooking or just, just something like that.

So it's a really important part of of self-expression and of, of being human. But then if you are going to put it out into the world, it's about what's what the shameles that that brings up and how can I get around them or release them. So I think partly at the first of it is continuing what you've already kind of identified it, but it's sort of trying to work on releasing your attachment to the outcome and just create with passion.

It doesn't, not everything has to hit the mark. I, read, I, I don't know if I mentioned this last time, but reading a book about habits at the moment, and in one thing, the guy was telling a story about, a photography art class in the States, and the tutor split the class in half. And he said to one half of the class, I'm going to grade you on the number of photos that you submit.

So if you submit 100 photos, that's an A. If you submit 80, that's a B, if it's 70, it's a C, etc. So they had to go for volume.

And the other half of the class, he was like, I'm gonna grade you on quality. So you, you, you have to submit one photo, and it has to be the highest quality that you can manage. And what happened at the end of the, the, the semester, or whatever the American word for return is, was that the, the, the guys who were based on quantity far surpassed those who were being judged on the quality of their output, because the ones who were going for quantity just took so many more photos, they experimented with a lot more different things and they could then see what was working.

And so by being willing to get stuff wrong and put out stuff that didn't really work, or that perhaps wasn't as great. They were able to much more quickly fine tune and get to what, what was a really, really good and amazing image. While those who knew they were going to be judged on their quality just got constipated by perfectionism and struggled to create, you know, they were just so worried about the quality of what they were going to put out, and therefore they didn't learn as much and they didn't experience as much.

So I found that quite a useful. I'm still working on my own perfectionism, so that for me was kind of a bit of an aha moment of oh my God, yeah, just be willing to to try more stuff. And so to do that in your situation, it is totally about keeping going with the disconnect work of I of I choose to do my art.

I'm sharing it with people. I might even make a bit of money off it, off it, but I'm just putting it out into the world because it's an expression, it's an expression, but I am enough and worthy and OK as a person, even if no one likes any of my artwork, I, that's not the point of it. The point of it is just to create, so, and, and the other thing is.

Many, many people have what Brenne calls art scars. So, most people, art is such a, it's kind of like when you're, when you're a little kid, you can draw whatever you like and no one criticises it. But then when you get kind of further into school, suddenly there's a right and a wrong way to do art as you come towards GCSE.

And then, so that means that you can come under criticism or judgement. I think something like 80% of people that Brenes surveyed could trace back some sort of humiliating comment around an art an art form at school that that just completely made them then decide they were crap at art and never, never going anywhere near it again. So a a lot of times we can have arts cars, if you like, in those ways.

So really look at the stories you're telling yourself, what do you make it making it mean. Tunne into the inner critic, like I was saying to, to Nicola, . And otherwise, in terms of looking at it from a portfolio career perspective, I would say .

Perhaps not, is there, is there some way that you can stretch into doing more of it and enjoying it and putting it out there for income generation, but without your household finances being really dependent on it. So whether that means tolerating, you know, knocking back the vet work a little bit and coping with slightly less finance coming in as long as it doesn't go below your cut-off point while you just have a play with the greeting card thing. So that your, your finances are not, there's nothing that kills creativity quicker than financial fear.

So I don't know if that's, if that's maybe a possibility. Because if you could create more time and space to enjoy it, then, that, that might be helpful for creative flow as well. Now the other thing is asking for, for, for feedback.

So, you know, perhaps looking at where, other than just obviously craft fairs is one place, but there might be local. Arty sort of shops or gift shops or things where they might be looking for local artists to sell that sort of thing, and then asking for feedback of what seems to be selling well, or making a range of cards and being brave enough to go out, sort of almost having a testing group of people that that you know or can access to say, look, can I just give you 5 cards and you tell me which one's your favourite? And, and doing a little bit of kind of almost customer research if you like, if you, if you're wanting to make it income generating rather than just purely for for fun, or looking at where else could you have outlets, you know, I looked I looked on Etsy after I read your question today, and there was loads of people doing greeting cards on there.

Well you due to watch the comparisonitis gremlin as well, with that, so. And the other thing might be worth posting a few a question in the Vets Dago diversify Facebook thread, because there are quite a lot of vets combining some form of art pursuit with their vet work. So you could just put a post on there to say, look, this is something that I'm thinking of exploring.

I'd be really interested to hear from anyone else who is doing this, is doing something similar in terms of how did you get started, has it ruined your enjoyment of it being a hobby? And just sort of posing a few questions, and I'm sure you would get quite a lot of really useful, helpful responses in there. And also, you could potentially with, if anyone came up with a really interesting answer, you could then take that into the DMs and say, look, do you mind if I just, can I give you a quick call for 10 minutes and just pick your brain, see how did you get started?

How soon did it become income generating, what's your pathway, and interview them a little bit like we were saying in the career clarity blueprint, thing. And then in terms of. Knowing whether it would ruin it as a hobby or not, that's one of those things where cognitively you're not really just gonna be able to to figure that out.

I think if you decide how you would enjoy doing your arts and bugger what anyone else is doing, and in terms of the way that they're doing it and do it in your own way and decide how you want to do it, and then be just willing to experience that, and then test it for a period of time and see how it feels because I think once you experience it. You will, partly it's, like I say, really looking at the stories you're telling yourself, about it, because that might influence whether you enjoy it or not. And then just engaging with it and giving it a try and seeing how it feels.

That would be the quickest way to work it out. And if it did start to feel like, actually, this is denting my enjoyment of it. I think all you would need to do to reconnect would be to, to, to stop doing that, give it a break for a while and then hopefully your enjoyment of that would, would come back.

Or if it didn't, you could just pick a slightly different alternative, creative pursuit. So, what's, what does that, how, how does that sound? What do you think about that?

Yeah, that's really helpful. Yeah, I, I hadn't thought of, the, idea of speaking to people on that diversify. So I think that, that could potentially be really helpful.

And, yeah, I think I definitely, I find if I'm doing art just as like a gift to someone, say, like for a relative or something like that. I am in the flow and I, I love doing it and I, it doesn't, I, I seem to get a good outcome. But as soon as I'm doing it for something where I think I'm gonna get judged on it, it then, like you say, it just stops your creativity and then you end up sort of, Yeah, not enjoying it.

So it's trying to kind of, I suppose, it's almost like I need to do it with pretending that I'm doing it for a relative, and then the outcome is gonna be hopefully a better one. But yeah, it's, yeah. I like you said, I need to work on the, the gremlins.

Yeah, and just catching them, seeing what, what, what's coming up and then taking that into your journal or notebook and just working your way through it using some of the techniques and again thinking about what do I want to programme in instead, What would feel better, how would I like, how would I like to take this forward, and how can I make it fun. Again, a little bit like we were talking in one of the other modules, asking those questions of how can I make this easy, how can I make it enjoyable or allow it to be easy. And, and fighting, you know, that we do have a natural tendency, I think, to overcomplicate and look for how it's gonna be difficult, and actually retraining that into, but how could it be fun?

How could I make this enjoyable? Because the more you are enjoying it, the more that will come out, I think, in, like, as you say, when you're doing it for someone that you love, your result is different. Yeah.

Yeah. Good. Yeah, thank you.

You're very welcome. A few bits in there. Right.

Nicola Cornish, you are here. Hello. So Nico's saying, I was also talking portfolio career.

So she's saying, I have a portfolio career of TV testing, small animal consulting, and a small holiday let business. Usually, especially at this time of the year, I'm feel really run ragged, racing from one to the other. In this current situation, I'm just TB testing and I've really noticed the improvement in the quality of my day to day life, if you ignore the money.

And she's saying I was contemplating dropping the small animal consulting at Christmas anyway, but I find myself always justifying carrying on, you know, kids that you need, complete savings, you need to fix the car, and I worry that stopping would mean I could never go back if necessary. I wondered if you had any strategies for just making a decision rather than endless fence sitting and dithering. Yeah, I have a few thoughts on, on this, Nicola.

So the first thing is, Is, is at the moment, it's sounding like there's a bit of an either or going on in your mind. So, so it's kind of almost like either I keep my portfolio split the same as it is at the moment and have the financial abundance that I feel I would like and accept that I'm being run ragged, or. I I change that, lose one of the elements, have more time, have more well-being, but, but see a big dent in my finances.

And it's feeling like that you're choosing between one or the other, and they're quite big, that they feel that they're both quite, you know, having financial wealth in abundance is really an important thing, if that's one of your values. And it is for most of us, you know, most of us, that's either security or freedom, all sorts of stuff comes with that, . Or wellbeing and how you're feeling, and so it's like how do you choose between those, there's no wonder you're sitting on the fence.

So it's kind of like, instead of thinking of it in terms of either or, starting to think, how can I make that an and. How can I have both of those things, just get curious about it and be open to it, so you might have a current belief of it really is either or. There isn't a way to have both.

That's just a belief, it's not a truth. So just starting to go, right, how can I make this an and and what that might look like is. Is thinking, so first of all, also with the, with the worry about de-skilling, while you're experimenting with this, you could, like, you know, stopping this one animal or consulting in the way that you are doing currently, but perhaps keeping the odd weekend single locuming shift in just for a period of time, just while you're trying out the new split to see how it feels, or, and or while you're thinking about how can I, if I've got a better quality of life and a little bit more time.

Other ways that I don't fill up that time with something else that equally runs me ragged, but are there ways that I could create more wealth or generate more income from the things that I already have, potentially. So that's kind of shifting, shifting away from a scarcity mindset and moving towards more towards an abundance mindset. And thinking, just maybe having a brainstorming session and, and just thinking what is what, what could I potentially do, and I think if those are the two options, it's probably gonna be your small holiday let that has more scope, I'm guessing.

So, and I'm not asking you to answer these particular questions right now, but it's just thinking, right, could I, is there any kind of like higher level service add-on that I could build into the holiday lets business that might mean that I could command a higher fee for some clients for some products or services? So is there kind of like a, a VIP version of a stay in one of your lets? Where perhaps they get some bonus things or they get, a beautiful organic food parcel delivered from nearby that you make a markup on or, or just, or, or I don't know, just kind of like a more, more VIP type experience than they would normally get that a certain type of client within the sector would really value.

You know, when you look at high-end glamping. That there's certainly a market out there for something a little bit more quirky or different or or VIP, so that, so that might be it, no, don't think we can do that, but it's just, it's just getting curious as to, is there, is there anything within there that could have a tweak that would just mean that clients that can only that can afford what it is at the minute can still access it, but clients where they are a bit less well heeled. What would a VIP experience look like and what can I charge for that?

And that might bring up some money gremlins to, to work through as well in terms of charging. So, that's just kind of 11 example. God, I've written so many notes here.

I'm, . What else have I written? Yeah, sometimes it's Improvements in the and that might come, yeah, I've I've written kind of improvements in the quality of life and your wellbeing and then potential knock-on effects for health and all sorts of stuff there, even if that's in the face of less money to a point, obviously, that is worth considering because.

None of us know how long we've got, you know, look at what's going on at the moment. We're, we're, we're, there, there's, we, we have this one life. We're here to experience it.

We, we don't know how long any of us have got any, and that's not a doom and gloom thing. I would be saying that, not in the face of the virus, but, you know, it is about, we, we tend to have this thing where we're like, right, I've got to squirrel loads of stuff away from my retirement or when I stop working. And sometimes we can then spend our working life not being able to be in the moment or really enjoying it because we're backing up all our enjoyment for our retirement, but hopefully we will all make it to to there.

But actually life is happening right now. And so, again, that might be just something to potentially try for a little bit, and if you're finding that the finances really, really weren't working or you just couldn't come up with any other generate revenue generating things after a period of time, well, that's fair enough, at least you would have tried it. And if you're keeping your hand in with the odd bit of locuming, and even if you weren't, you know, I've worked with clients where they've had significant career breaks out of veterinary, and yes, it's a bit nerve-wracking going back in.

You can absolutely do it. There's, there's a lot of come back to work, CPD and things that will get you back up to speed with drug changes and procedure changes and things, as well. So.

A little bit like we've said a couple of other times tonight, you know, when, when you have got splinters in your bum, because you've been sat on the fence for so long, it is about just engaging with, engaging with it and being willing to, to, to give it a try and actually trust in your abilities to cope, to problem solve, to pivot again if it isn't working, and actually just experience it and see what, what happens, because from the space where you've got more time in your day to day life. When you're, you know, a little bit like I was saying, to, to Becca, there's stuff that can really kill our creativity and, and being constantly run nagging and having absolutely no time and no white space is not good for, for coming up with new or or different ideas. Whereas when you do have a bit more of life and a bit more time, that's sometimes when things start to pop back into your head that you're like, oh, I've not thought of that before, or you've got time to have conversations with people about other directions or other things, .

So, is that, how does, how does that sound? Does that help? Yeah, it, yeah, it's good.

I, I have thought of the sort of VIP add-on bits, but sort of the way I am is I'm always Scared of dropping something. So when I looked at that, it just seemed like yet another thing to do. It's like, oh God.

Because, you know, I thought, oh, I could cook and provide meals or, you know, pre-ordered meals. And then you look into the health and safety aspect of that, and I just, I shelved it for a while. I thought, I cannot add that to what I'm doing.

. And also, at the moment, I think, like, I don't know what the small animal environment that I do is gonna look like after this thing. So I think I'll just sit quietly and see what they say. But, at the moment, I do 4 afternoons a week.

And I think they'd be quite open to me saying, should I do 2 for a while and just see how it goes. . But I'm not gonna, I'm, I'm not gonna raise that now because I think that, you know, it's, it's not the right time, but you know, in this terrible situation, I, I felt a bit guilty, quite enjoying it some of the time, you know, I.

So I've quite, my quality of life has gone up quite considerably because I'm getting out and about, earning some money, but I haven't got that constant clock watching thinking, oh God, I've got to be back for afternoon surgery, and on the way back, I've got to do this laundry and meet this person, and yeah. So it's actually, yeah, it's been good. Yeah.

And you're, you're so not alone in that at all. I was talking to, a client this morning. And she was completely unashamed of it, she obviously she recognises the seriousness of what's going on, but she was kind of like, oh, it, it's just, she's loving it, she lives on the south coast, she's getting out on her bike, she said she's sleeping better than ever because she's not anxious about work all the time and.

These observations, they're they're useful observations because that's telling you something quite important about, and, and I worked with a client a while ago where she'd had terrible, she suddenly had a sudden onset of awful encephalitis and ended up in intensive care, very nearly lost her life, but came out out of that, and then had to go through quite a long recovery process of brain functioning coming back before she could become a vet again. And through that, she just had to prioritise self-care because there was no other way that she, she couldn't recover without it. And through actually prioritising self-care and, and being forced to kind of have a life and look after herself, that just just then shifted everything.

She was like, right, I'm gonna go back into vetting, but I'm not gonna ever not do my self-care. And it wasn't just because of the brain injury then. It was kind of like, I've realised how different life is.

And so she went back into it very, very boundaried and. Couldn't then quite find the right situation for her and has now gone, she's still within the veterinary profession, but she's gone less clinical. She's doing one of those kind of roving clinical support roles within one of the corporates rather than being frontline in the consult room and and much better able to manage her quality of life.

But that the driver for that came from having experienced what it feels like when you can have a better day to day quality of life, so. So I get that there's the feelings, there's always feelings of guilt. I think someone said in one or two Q&As ago that they, they felt guilty for what for feeling anxious about their own situation because some people had a lot, a lot worse.

But our own situations are our own situation, so there's always going to be someone who's got it better and there's someone who's got it worse. So it's about taking your eyes off what's happening. With everyone else in that sense, and tuning into what's my experience showing me at the moment?

What's it bringing up for me, getting really curious and looking at what useful stuff can come from that in terms of decision making moving forward, if that makes sense. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it does.

And that thing of always planning for tomorrow and then something like this happens, and it chucks a bomb right into the middle of that, because all that planning you've been thinking was. You know, well I'll do this with this little bit of money, you're now having to live off it. So what was the point?

I know there's, there's a balance to be struck because hopefully we are all gonna live for another few decades, but . Yeah, it, it really makes you think about it more. Yes, yeah, absolutely.

And, and I don't think that's a bad thing, at all, and I think it's, it's, it, it's good. This is, this is forcing us to look at so many things, both positive and negative, and that reflection is actually, is, is a good thing, provided you're watching your mindset and you're, you know, that you don't just get into a loop. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, definitely.

So yeah, sit tight for now, but yeah, that sounds like a good thing in terms of eking it back a little bit and seeing how that feels and then just keep re-evaluating moving forward. Yeah. OK, thanks ever so much.

Thanks, Nicola. Right, we're on to our last post, two more questions. So, Bethling, where are you?

Oh, let me mute next again, mm mm mm. Yep. Rebecca, I think you're there.

So, Rebecca's saying, I've been exploring ideas and feeling a bit stuck. The idea of looking into onto roles which involve writing or speaking appeal, however, there's two issues that keep raising their head for me. One is that I'm not sure how much a need for recognition plays into this, and although that is a value that came up for me, I'm just not sure how comfortable I feel with it, as it is, and not sure what to do about that.

And then secondly, she said, I'm aware that my skills and experience abroad. However, I don't feel I have a specific area of expertise. Therefore, when I think about roles roles involving writing or speaking, I get my inner critics showing up and I feel like I lack a depth of knowledge in any one area that would be needed.

So, . Becca, are you? Oh, are you there?

Oh, hello, lovely, nice to speak to you. So one question I wanted to ask Rebecca, so these roles, are they roles within your own company that you would be creating, or is this completely something new and external sort of yet to be defined outside of the company? It's looking external, yeah.

OK, so it's thinking of, of outside or other roles. So just roles that would involve speaking or writing in, in, in, in what particular sector? I guess that's it.

I don't really know, but I know that I've involved, you know, I've really enjoyed when I have done kind of, I did . For example, a TV interview or when I was at uni, I used to really enjoy doing kind of the public speaking and things like that, . So that kind of side appeals, but even kind of writing it down and telling you I was a bit like, oh God, that feels really kind of.

I don't know, I felt really awkward saying it even and vocalising it, you know, it's that kind of, oh, get you, who do you think you are kind of showing its head. So I don't know, it's a really interesting one because I'm, there is something about it that I'm drawn to, but at the same time, there's something inside me going, you know. Definitely.

And I think, like, if you think back to the Passion and Purpose webinar, the, the, the, the, the shame works like a vice. We, we either tend to oscillate between the not feeling good enough, or the other, the other one is the, oh, who do you think you are to think those things. And we sort of bounce between, between those two.

So that feeling of, of, of, is, is can just be another form of, of shame trigger. And I guess it's kind of like, you know, looking at A need for recognition, what I've written in my notes is kind of, is that a problem? Is it necessarily a is it necessarily always a problem?

I think I'm concerned that I'm tying my self worth to recognition. So I guess it just feels, again, it's kind of almost like that, it feels a little bit. Is it boastful?

I don't know, but that kind of, or, you know, I want to be recognised, but also, like, why should my self-worth be tied to being recognised for what I do? Yeah, yes, absolutely. And it's so it's more, it's that fine line between, isn't it, because kind of status, and recognition is kind of that there, that is an important social need for most of us at some level, so we, we, we all tend to express that in, in different ways.

And so it really is kind of the, the, the, the poking about at it to see, is it a self-worth thing, as in if I get recognition, do I feel like I'm a better person, or is it just, is it that if I get recognition, that's a really nice, it's a good feeling and I enjoy that feeling and it makes me feel more confident and that that it induces a positive response. So it's sort of, I suppose it's thinking. When you, because it's thinking about what is it about, what is it about speaking or writing that you enjoy?

I think I've always enjoyed taking things which people might find quite complex and Expressing them in a way that they become understandable or more easily accessible to people and, and that is what I used to enjoy when I was vetting. Yeah, absolutely. So the ability to be a translator and, and be able to get a message across in a way that then your audience can have that aha moment or they can have that, oh gosh, OK, I get that now.

So So the outcome, the, the, the ability to, to synthesise that and then package it in a way that then is helpful and useful to your audience, that's an act of service. So part of this could be around reframing. So, and that's obviously gonna feel good if you do that and you nail it and you get that, you get that good reaction, and it has been really helpful.

It it's, that's, that's a good positive feeling and that's you having been in service to to others. And the, the self-worth disconnect there is, is, again, it's a little bit like releasing the attachment to the outcome, as in, I enjoy, so and if you're thinking in terms of, I like being able to synthesise, translate, and then commit and then get that across to people in a way that's helpful. It's again taking the pressure off yourself to nail that absolutely every single time so that if you did that and there was an article that you wrote that was a bit less popular or a speaking gig that you did where you didn't quite feel like the audience were massively engaged with it, the Southwest piece then is kind of choosing to know that a little bit like the photographs and if you do enough of it.

The quality of what you deliver will will absolutely get better. But there might be the odd bomb article or slightly less popular talk along the way, and choosing to know that you're enough already. So I think you can kind of have both of those in terms of the using the enjoyment of recognition as a motivator, as a, as, as something that pushes you towards healthy striving and doing a good job, whilst at the same time being very mindful of.

If I did produce something that I felt wasn't quite as good as some of my other work, what would I be, just be careful about what you would say to yourself in that situation? Yeah, I think that reframes it really well, actually, and makes me feel a lot more comfortable with the whole concept of it. And the, and the second thing in terms, so and then the thing about the generalism, so why I've written generalism is especially an in and of itself.

So, so being a super specialist in one particular area means that you create your, your service to others from, from one narrow field of focus that you're very deep into. But actually being able to be quite generalised and be able to sort of holistically work in several different areas and join the dots and be able to join the dots for other people and then synthesise that into a message, that's really powerful and it is a sort of specialism in and of itself. So, because it's kind of like people, when you look at, when you break down the anatomy of a TED Talk, for example, 18 minutes.

And, and look at the most successful TED Talks. There's a really, fantastic book called Talk Like TED, that I read when I was preparing for my Nove my November things, and it completely changed the way I created all my presentations. It's thinking about what's the outcome that you want for that audience?

What do you want? They're, they're not gonna, you know, you can talk for 18 minutes, they're not gonna remember 18 minutes' worth of content. They'll come away with one key take home that's quite transformational.

That's why I kind of tend to ask you guys the next day when I remember to do it, what was your biggest take home from last night, because it, it's wanting to tune into that one piece of information that has then got that person's life slightly forward in some way, shape, or form. So you don't always have to be being massively detailed and super specialist in one area to be able to achieve a successful outcome with an article or or a talk. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah. Because people are only ever gonna take in a small, a small amount of what you say anyway.

And it's just thinking of that, what's the starting position of the audience? Where are they now with that content, and where do you want to move them to with your piece of content or your, or your speech? so, and again, a little bit like we've been saying a lot this evening, partly, if you're not sure, but you've got quite a good feeling that that's what you might enjoy, it's sometimes being brave enough to just step into that and, and try it, and see how it feels.

Great. Thank you. You're very welcome.

Right, Roz, who has been patiently waiting and is still here. My gosh, well done. Hi, hi Roz.

Well done all of you actually for, for still being on the call. so Ros is saying, I don't really know what my question is, but I'm really struggling with not actively contributing to the COVID-19 effort. I've backed away from anything me related since the schools closed, this course included.

And so this is my effort to re-engage and commit to watching a webinar this evening and I'm catching up on some webinars while my children watch films this afternoon. So Ros, what I would say to you is self compassion, self compassion, more self compassion. You know, freeze, that freeze mode is absolutely a, a, a very real response for a lot.

I've gone into freeze mode so many times since this all started, for, for various different, reasons. So, so I don't know if you, you might not have caught up on the last, the, the, the last, the limiting beliefs anxiety webinar yet where we're talking about overfunctioning or underfunctioning. If you haven't watched that one yet, when you get to that section, that will be interesting to see because certainly we talked about how under anxiety we tend to fall into one of two patterned ways in terms of either overfunctioning or underfunctioning, which is more of that kind of the, the, the freeze type response.

And well, and we talked about how you can move through that as well. So I think the first thing is, is really knowing that you are actively supporting just by staying at home, following the guidance and not being part of the problem, and you are supporting the response to to this. And that's, that's so important.

So we're all either a part of the problem or a part of a solution, and actually staying at home and following the guidance is a massive part of the, the solution to this. So release yourself from the pressure of feeling like you're not contributing, you're contributing just by following the, the, the guidance and advice. .

The, and also, I was talking to a client this morning who has been trying to sign up to be on the 111 response thing. So she's been trying to get involved in, in things in her local area around Bristol, and then she just, there have been so many people volunteering that no one will take her on. So, so the, there is kind of like, even if you're wanting to step more into it, you might find that actually there's, there's not any space to be able to contribute any more than that, at the moment.

So. This, this is a really important part, just as I was talking about with as Nicola Cornish was just saying there, that almost she's been forced to step into doing, doing less as, as most of us, as many of us have, and actually this can be quite an important time for just stopping and just having a bit of rest and renewal. Obviously, and connection time with your family, if you've got children at home or school, there's not much time for rest and renewal, I get that, .

But there's time for connection, with the children and their needs. You know, I certainly, it's releasing yourself from the pressure. I've not, like, for example, we're running the business at the moment because I've been still creating the course with you guys and I've got quite a lot of clients at the moment.

I've not really been able to, I've seen some of the other, other coaches are doing loads and loads of stuff in the social media environment. And it's not just a cop out because I find that difficult, but I genuinely haven't had the, the energy. I've had some stuff going on in my personal life as well.

So, I've just had to be really accepting that you you can't be everywhere doing everything. You have to focus on what you can do. And then be very, very compassionate and and gentle with yourself, about what you're not doing or the standards you feel you're not meeting, or and certainly not comparing and contrasting to what other people are doing, because we're all oscillating with this, I think, you know, we'll we'll all have days where we're dealing with it.

And it's feeling OK, and I think we'll all have periods where it's definitely not feeling OK, and, and, or we don't know how to handle it, or we don't know how to to to change your response to it, and all of that is absolutely fine. There's, there's a lot of people out there with opinions of you should be doing this and do this and don't do this. And it's kind of like, you can't know, we, we all, we're all just finding our own way through this and focusing on what's, important, to you.

And we've talked about, obviously you have, you know, you've made an intention to, to re-engage and you've actioned that by sending me through the questions. So you've taken some action on this already. And as you've heard, hopefully a few times tonight, you're not the only person feeling a sense of resistance or, or a lack of flow or disengagement with the process, at all.

And I think that's, Cheryl, one of the bits that Cheryl, I was going to read out that, and hopefully, Cheryl, don't mind me, me sharing this. So Cheryl was saying before the start, you said I should be on the lookout for resistance to completing the course, and she was going, yep, that happened in the last module. Her brain tried to say how the hell is this even relevant compared to a global emergency.

So she just took a week off, she concentrated on getting through a really long week of night shifts, and then when she's felt ready, she's enjoyed kind of coming back in and and just reconnecting with the process this week, but she was saying if she hadn't sort of. Listen to the bit in the Wellcome webinar about the fact that resistance will crop up, that she might not have come back, she might not have re-engaged with the process. So well done for re-engaging with the process.

Both of you, all of you that have hit resistance and, and kept going with it, because that's not easy. And that it's a really good thing to, to be, you know, even just wanting to start to reconnect, even if it's just, just a little bit. So it's really just trying to love yourself through this and really be accepting, of the ups and ups and downs.

And, you know, you're, you're being a teacher, you're home, you know, you're being with the children at home, dealing with all of the things that that that that brings. And there's there's a lot of stuff that that that brings with it as well. So, Ros, where, where are you?

Ross, does that help? Yeah, I mean, I think really the thing that Resonated most from, from what you've said earlier is, the sort of white space thing. So I think before the schools closed, I just about got the hang of allowing myself some time during the day when I could focus on me and focus on doing the exercises for the course and that kind of and sort of thinking about other career stuff.

And then, and then the schools closed and I was just like, right. None of that matters. Sit on all of that.

You know, just gone full time into looking after the kids, which is obviously, also my job, so important. But yeah, but yeah, it's, it's taken me until now really to go, well, I, I can't literally put everything else on hold until this is over because That's, yeah, not gonna work. Yeah, absolutely.

And, and that's just about looking for creative, imperfect ways to engage with it. So, how I've been handling that with, so I've just got the one child, she's 5, and so in the morning, I just give her, she, she just, she's getting a lot more screen time than she would ever normally do, and I'm just trying to be really OK with that because I've got, you know, there's. So in the morning, she'll get the iPad, I'm afraid, and I just pop my earphones in and I'm, I'm working my way through the DA and Oprah, meditation thing at the moment, which is lovely.

And it's just 20 minutes, and she's quite happy because she gets to watch episodes of God knows what. And then, and so that's, that's, and, and, or sometimes I'll do that out in the garden. If she's engaged with something and she's playing, I'll do a cheeky little bit of journaling, or I'll pop my earphones in and listen to something, or, Tag team with my husband, getting the chance to go out for a run and just doing, you know, just clearing your mind.

So it's looking for little bite size pieces that might not be done in the way you want, that might not be done with peace and quiet around you that you can just take as and when needed when you feel like you've got the beans and completely not. Not being harsh on yourself when you totally don't have the beans. Yeah.

And that goes with all of this. So, so Monday, I was quite on it with, with trying to homeschool. We actually got through 3 different Phonics videos, and I was like, Parenting epically brilliant.

And then Tuesday, some stuff cropped up, you know, just stuff that's going on for me at the moment. And I just couldn't, I just, I just, we we didn't do anything. She just amused herself for most of the day, and I really had to just lean into going.

I didn't, I did not have a petrol today. She's fine. She's had food, she's healthy.

I needed some space for me. We'll pick it up again tomorrow. And just be really leaning into all of the acceptance and, and self-compassion stuff and doing what you can when you feel like it and just let go when you can't.

OK. Thank you. Yeah, that is helpful.

Good. I'm glad. Thanks for us.

OK, troops, I think, I don't think I've missed anyone out. Stick your hand up if I've missed anyone out, but I'm pretty sure I've worked through all of them now. Just have a wee check, see any hands going up.

OK. So, that's brilliant. Just fantastic questions, really, really, really, really good insightful, thoughtful questions.

Thank you for engaging, with this process, and, thank you for staying on the call. I know it's, I know we, we've run over a lot on these calls, but hopefully they're, they're useful. So I will all release you to what's left of the evening.

And, I'll, I'll be back in touch again about Tuesday. So we've got our next, our final webinar, on Tuesday night, kind of tying all of this together and just thinking about how we, how we plan for moving forward. So I'm gonna love you and leave you, and I'll see you all hopefully on Tuesday night and just ping me an email if you've got any, any questions or feedback from tonight.

So I will say goodnight for now. Thank you all and see you again very soon.