The Great Untangle

Welcome to The Great Untangle, a channel

dedicated to helping you navigate the messy

intersections of work, life and personal fulfilment.

I'm your host, Dr.

Nicky Priaulx.

Now, if you're in a job that you

value many aspects of, but you're thinking about

quitting, maybe because you're overworked, or struggling with

difficult interpersonal dynamics, or both,

I urge you to listen to

this interview before making that leap.

In this transformative episode, we're diving deeply into one

of the most challenging aspects of being human:

The art of setting boundaries and staying

true to ourselves in difficult situations.

Whether it's an overwhelming workload, challenging relationships,

or the constant pressure to people please,

a lot of us struggle to say no,

even when our well being is at stake.

Join me for an extraordinary conversation with

an extraordinary human being, Elaine Blidgeon, a

mindset achievement coach who helps people transform

their relationship with conflict and personal boundaries.

You're going to hear about her remarkable personal

journey overcoming severe anxiety to her innovative work

helping clients navigate challenging dynamics in both work

and personal life, Elaine offers such profound insights

into breaking free from people-pleasing patterns, and

finding authentic power in all our relationships.

In this episode, we explore why pushing through

fear often backfires and what to do instead.

The profound connection between our inner landscape and

how we handle difficult situations, understanding and transforming

our reactive patterns and why surface level solutions

like "quiet-quitting", an expression I don't really

like, or job-hopping, often don't create the

lasting change we might hope for.

Now, whether you're dealing with challenging relationships at

work or home, struggling with boundaries, or you're

yearning for more enriching connections in any area

of your life, this episode reveals why deep

mindset work, rather than quick fix solutions holds

the key to lasting, positive change.

For those tuning into this as an audio

only experience, please note that you'll also find

the full video of this interview available on

The Great Untangle channel on YouTube too.

But if you want to stay all ears,

it's useful you to know that during the

interview, Elaine uses two props to spotlight aspects

of her experiences in battling against anxiety.

At around the 15 minute mark, she

introduces a pair of yellow Marigold gloves

and at approximately the 85 minute mark,

a T-shirt with the message www.banishanxietysymptoms.co.uk.

Now, if you find value in today's

conversation, please help me reach more people

by liking, subscribing and sharing this episode.

Plus, I'd absolutely love to hear your thoughts

in the comments, share your own experiences about

boundary-setting, what resonated most with you from

this conversation, or any topics that you'd like

me to explore in future episodes.

And if you've had your own transformation story,

I'd love, love, love to hear from you.

Now let's get started and get untangling.

Welcome, Elaine Blidgen! Hello.

Hello Nicky or Dr Nicky,

However you'd like me to call you!

Hello, everyone.

It's so amazing to have you on the channel.

I'm so excited.

If I could think of the best person in

the entire world to pull onto a channel which

is about untangling from difficult situations, it is you.

Thank you.

Yeah, absolutely.

For people who are watching, Elaine is a mindset achievement

coach and she speaks to a very wide audience, which

for myself I would just say it is everybody in

the world that feels that they are in a tricky

spot, whether in their personal lives, in their working lives,

whether they're a manager, a leader, a CEO, head of

a zoo, it doesn't matter what that person is doing.

Maybe they're even running an entire country.

But they're feeling tangled up and,

and they're feeling that they...

How do you describe the, the place you're trying

to get people to get to Elaine? Better

ask the expert here.

I want you to imagine that every interaction that

you have is either going to be, yeah, this

is cool, I like this person, this is great,

or oh, oh, no, didn't like that.

So you're either going to be triggered by that person in a

negative way or it's just going to be fine and you're just

going to get on much like how we get on.

What do you do when you get triggered and you

need to have that person on side or they're part

of your team or they're a family member or they're

a friend and what do you say?

What do you do?

What can tend to happen is you'll either minimise yourself in

some way or you'll overreact or you'll just not know what

to do and you might do people-pleasing, which is what

I did, and you might do all these other icky things

just to keep the harmony in that relationship.

What I do is help you to identify what your

trigger points are and I get rid of them, basically.

Not just as simple as that,

but that's essentially what I do.

And I make it so that you're able

to converse easier, much more naturally, much more

empoweringly with that kind of person, especially if they argue.

So difficult people, difficult situations,

Where are you helping people

to become honest, I wonder?

Because I thought this because of course for, for viewers, Elaine

and I of course have had a kind of pre-session

chat where I had the most amazing conversation with her there,

where I wish I'd been pressing record then.

It was an epic conversation as it will be here

today as well, but I got the feeling that you

are helping people to kind of align their values.

Yeah, in a sense, because I think

so much of what you've said about what you do,

to me really resonates because I see myself as that

person who, on the one hand, people pleasing everywhere.

Yes.

But really neglecting myself and not resentful of

that so much, but feeling just desperate with.

I'm trying to make everyone's

lives better except my own. And so,

when you feel that, I feel like you're

kind of feeling a bit dishonest because you're,

how can I make everyone else's life okay?

But I want to have a good life myself. Yeah.

I think it's more inauthentic than dishonest.

I think if you're not allowing yourself to

be you, then you're not authentically being you.

And it's not that you're deliberately

trying because dishonesty smacks of dishonesty.

Just deliberate. Yeah.

Whereas when you're inauthentic, you're trying, but you haven't

yet got the mindset skills to get there.

Now, most people think that a

conversation is pretty surface level.

And so I say something, you say something bad.

But what happens is when our mindset is not aligned

with our values, we will be forever thinking, right, what

should I be saying now to make that person not

think X about me or to think Y about me?

And all of that overthinking gets in

the way of you being authentically you.

So when you.

When I recognise that.

So it will always show in some sort

of external behaviour like you've mentioned, people pleasing.

So if you're a people pleaser, as I was and still

am to a little extent now, that's because our thinking tells

us we need to say or do this thing in order

to get that person to react in the way that we

think they need to react in order for us to feel

good about ourselves and to validate us and to make them

not dislike us and to things to be worse.

And that's all that overthinking.

When I find that trigger and I twiddle

around with it, you're able to be you.

And it's amazing.

It's amazing how the other person, no matter what they

do, you can still be you and get the outcome

that you want, but it's much more authentic and they

will react to that authenticity as opposed to the falseness

of trying to make people like us.

I hope that made sense.

It makes total sense.

So in this context, so I think

maybe if we return back to this.

But my understanding would be something like this

would be the kind of transformation, the place

that you could have perhaps helped me.

I wish I had known you several years ago because

maybe it would enable me to have stayed in a

job of which many aspects I liked, ... loved, actually.

Yes.

And don't get me wrong, I'm a total

believer in having no regrets.

You know, I rather kind of looked at the

future and I love what I do now.

I love where I am now.

And there's still part of me that thinks, oh, I'm

not really sure I would have been able to transform

myself or I don't think I needed to transform myself.

I think what I needed was to

do something different that fitted me.

But that said, I would have had

options, you would have given me.

That's the difference.

Because there's a.

There's a difference between we have to go because

we're in burnout and we can't cope with it. Yeah.

Or I choose to go because I'm in burnout

and I don't want to do that again in.

And I know what works well for me and it's that choice.

And you are absolutely right.

And yes, if you'd have seen me a

few years ago, you would have

given yourself more choice and you

still might have ened up where you are now,

but it would have been a different mindset. Yeah.

Well, you've made this point to me

before as well, and I think we'll

be returning to it in a more substantive

way a little bit later on in the conversation.

But you made the point and I thought,

oh, my God, that, that is wisdom itself.

"Wherever you go, there you are."

So leaving a workplace for some people is not

going to be a solution because you're going.

And maybe another workplace where the same problem arises,

where you're feeling overworked and in maybe difficult situations

with people and you leave that in favour of

a different workplace and the same thing just perpetuates

on and on and on.

So actually, these changes are about an organic change

that can open up a person's world in the

world of work, in the world of life.

Definitely.

The thing is, especially online, there's an idea

that X is causing me to react.

So a micromanager is making my life

harder at work and it's understandable that

I'm reacting this way because of them.

So if I get out of that situation and I'm

not around that micromanager, then it will be fine.

What happens is you, if you don't take responsibility for

your part in that, then even when you leave that,

you will recreate it again, but maybe slightly differently, but

you will recreate a situation where you feel, the only

thing I can do is leave. Yeah.

We tend to think that our interactions

with other people, we don't have a.

We're not part of it.

They're doing it to us and it's not.

We're doing it together.

So someone can say something mean and nasty,

that this is not about being Pollyanna-ish.

Somebody can be just downright mean. Yes.

And you can react in two general ways.

The first way is that you take it personally.

You react, you get angry and you bite back.

The second way is like, okay, I don't like that.

I'm not going to talk to you again.

I'm going to take my side out of

this and you might say something, but you're

not going to take it on board emotionally.

So then you don't react in

the way that you've done before.

So you don't take any of that negative stuff with you.

And when you're at that stage, you leave

that situation, you're already empowered in that.

So another negative person comes along, another

nasty, mean thing that they say, and

you can just brush it off.

And what tends to happen in these sort of

dynamics is that that person knows that they can't

score off you because the reason why they do

that is they get something from it.

As weird as that sounds, they get something from that.

And so if they can't get that from you,

they'll dismiss you and they will leave you alone.

And that's what happens, because you're more empowered and it's

on an inside job as opposed to an external

"Don't you speak to me like that".

"Do you know who I am?"

Which doesn't work.

You're now in that place of, okay, this is how

I'm going to respond to this sort of situation.

And people will change around you

and you will change too.

So it's diffusing situations and

it's creating some kind of.

Not armoury exactly, but you're.

And this is perhaps the only conversation I've had to

date where the term resilience might not trigger me.

Because we do live in an era where I

think there is so much discussion about mindfulness,

well-being in workplaces that

where, you know, are chaotic in terms of workloads

and chaotic in terms of how things have been

managed, but being able to navigate that with, with,

with true skills of resilience which is, you know

I, I've got friends who I love very dearly.

I love all my friends very dearly and some

of them are in jobs where they just constantly

dealing with hundreds of emails a day.

Some of them are so triggering trigger, trigger, trigger

that they're checking their emails perpetually in the evening,

at the weekends because they want to fend that

stuff off and they get triggered by it and

I can see their anxiety levels.

They're almost addicted to stress.

And so in this context I think an

Elaine Blidgeon intervention is required in their lives.

I think and say I think this conversation will

be really, really important for all my friends.

Maybe.

Sorry, sorry. Go for it.

No, I was just going to elaborate on

that but no because I can talk forever.

So you go on when we both can.

This, this is one of our skills I think.

Well, maybe if we kind of go back to the beginning

because I think the origin story of how you came to

perform this role would be amazing for people to hear.

Right.

So your website, which I think you've got a couple of

websites, one of which is Make Me Fearless and I'm impressed

by both of these in terms of the story that you

tell and I would love you to be able to tell

the story of your kind of starting point in realising that

the situation you were in is one that required a change,

that there needs some kind of intervention for you. Yes.

So what's your story?

Yes, my story. Right.

I brought, I was brought up on the diet of

self-help books because when I was at school, so when we

were at senior school around 13 years old, aren't we 14?

So I think about my first self-help book when I

was around 15, 16, something like that and I thought at

the time that there was something wrong with me.

I wasn't like the others.

I reacted to everything.

I was a consummate warrior and that was

foretelling what was going to happen next.

So when I read my first self help book it was about.

It helped me to understand that what goes on up here

is real and if you can twiddle with this bit up

here, you can change how you are in the world.

I started off - so let me

before I even get to that place - things got so bad

for me because I had no outlook for my mindset.

Just running rampant and stress and anxiety

was just part of what I did.

I was, I worried, I was stressed, I

didn't sleep and I couldn't cope with people

and I certainly couldn't cope with life.

And I brought a prop as a next

teacher, but I'll bring you a prop.

And the first prop I want

to bring are some Marigold gloves.

Now I want you to imagine this situation.

Things got so bad for me that I had to put

this on at home just like I'm doing now every day

before I could touch anything because

my anxiety then escalated into paranoia and

OCD and all sorts of weird things.

And I had this fear of contamination

in my own home, definitely outside.

So even in the summer months I would

wear gloves or try not to touch anything.

So I'd have wet wipes with me all the time.

And at home these would be on my hands all the time.

Even touching my own furniture, especially if I was outside, I

could not touch a bin, and so on and so on.

And now you think, well what would, what

could happen inside your head to create that?

It was the same thing that made me anxious.

It was the same thing that made me paranoid.

It was the same thing that stopped me from

able to interact with without replaying every single bit

of that conversation and ruminating on it.

It was the same thing that kept me away

from people as much as I could because I

couldn't cope with what I thought they were thinking

about me saying what I was saying to them.

And it's just a mindset, it's just your

beliefs, it's just your perceptions, your limiting beliefs,

however you want to name it.

And so, but I knew that I had this earlier

on in life and so I read the books to

try and help me to deal with it.

I then ended up going on

my neuro linguistic programming trainings.

I went on various other kind of esoteric things

just to try and get this under my control.

And at the time they said to me, no, you can't do that.

Because when I went on my training I wanted to help me.

And they said no, that's not how it works.

We train you, you get your

clients and you help your clients.

And I said but that doesn't make any sense.

No, that doesn't make any sense to me.

And they said "well that's the way it works."

And so there's something about my mindset that

said well no, I'm going to change that.

And because I didn't take that as that was it law.

I went on this very, very, very long, decades'

long journey going on various trainings to figure out

how to coach myself at that level because they

said that you would need either to go on

the pills and potions route or the psychotherapy route?

Both.

Well, the pills and potions I couldn't do

because of the contamination thing I had and

the idea of things taking over my body.

I know it gets a bit weird, this.

And I didn't want to go down

the other route because it was affordability.

So I had to find a way through all of this.

And so to cut a very long story short,

I knew that if I could get myself to,

one, not have to wear these gloves.

Two, to be able to touch a bin.

Three, to be able to put my hands on the grass.

Four, to be able to touch things in my home

without having a panic attack, I would be fine.

So I bought a book called, well,

the Idea of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

And inside something called Exposure Therapy.

Now, don't try this at home because it wasn't good.

I thought, okay, I can do that.

So at the front of the house I've

got a gate, and it's a rusty gate.

And so I thought, what I'll do is I'll

read through the book, I'll go through the exercises.

I can do this, you know, psych yourself up.

I went to my front gate and I literally just touched

it with my finger because previous to that I would either

have gloves on or I had have a cloth with me

to be able to touch it, to open it.

And I literally just touch it with my finger, ran

back in the house and had a panic attack because

I was not emotionally ready to touch that.

And when your imagination just goes berserk,

it makes the simplest things a threat. Yeah.

So I thought, no, I won't do that again.

So I spent then a few more months, a lot more

training, more books, everything I could find to figure out what

it was about what I was that allowed me to have

a panic attack by touching the gate with my finger.

Eventually, I created something called your mindset

recalibration method or the amnesia method.

And it was just finding the beliefs that

did that and undoing them at the unconscious level.

Because it's that that makes us react.

It's that that makes us people-please.

It's that that makes us hold back.

It's that that stops us being authentic.

It's not the person or the external

situations because that's just a trigger.

But once you know what your triggers are and

you can find out how to displace that, that

same person can say the same thing.

That situation can be exactly the same, but

you won't react in the same way.

And I put it down to this.

Whenever we're in a situation and you're speaking

to someone and you're getting triggered by it,

you'll notice that other people aren't.

So the question that I asked myself at the time

was, well, what is it they're thinking that I'm not?

What is it that they know that I don't?

Because if the situation was in fact the fault

thing here, we need to get rid of this

thing, then everybody that came across that thing would

react in the same way, would they not?

Yeah, that's true.

And they don't.

And they don't.

So if they're not reacting in a negative way, but

I am, they are thinking they know something that I

don't and I want to know what that is. Yeah.

And that is so simply your perceptions, and when

you can find the faulty one, twiddle around with

it, you can't react in the same way.

That's why I've called it the amnesia method.

It's like you forget how to be anxious.

And that's where I came from. That's where I came from.

That's where I am now.

Wow.

I know the story.

That's an amazing story.

But I'm trying to kind of process this in a way,

because I'm like, always think about the question of who I

am as being kind of lots of different parts.

And there are obviously parts of us where

they are unconscious programmes running, you know, and,

you know, tacit, you know, tacit.

And the tacit knowledge that makes up these

different parts can make the very excited.

Nicky, that's, you know, delighted to have an

amazing guest like you on this show.

Then there's the kind of this stuff where I have anxieties

about things as well, and I've never really thought to kind

of try to get to the root cause of them or

to kind of unpack them in this way.

And so it's also on the theme of anxiety.

Well, your story's an amazing one and I

think it'll be really inspiring for people to

hear who are currently struggling with anxiety.

And I think in many respects, we're living

in an era of anxiety, Elaine, aren't we?

Yes, definitely.

The thing is, it starts as a kernel, as just a thought.

I started off just an average worrier.

I worried about things.

So people worry about exams or [...]

Just normal, small things.

Exams aren't small things, they're

things you can objectify.

You can say, oh, there it is, that's the thing.

But then there's this generalised anxiety that

I've got friends who've got children who

have, are really struggling with anxiety and

it's kind of more diffuse, displaced.

It can also be triggered by particular things.

But then there's this underlying level of anxiety.

The only reason it's at that level is

because when it was at the smaller level

they didn't know, they didn't deal with it.

And what happens is just like when we did

maths at school we did the compound effect.

It just another worry, another worry, another worry and

it just makes it bigger and it makes it

more generalised and then you start to,

the perception that you have can

only be filtered through the worry.

Imagine those glasses, this is the

worry ones I'm putting on today.

And the low grade worry, which is what most

of us have then turns into a higher grade

and a higher grade and a higher grade still.

And the normal situations where you think well yeah, because

I've got children, you are going to worry a little

bit because you want to make sure that they're safe

and yeah, you want to make sure that you're coming

across well at work or you want to make sure

you get on with people, your friends, that then all

escalates, creates, seen through the lens of that worry, that

fear, that anxiety that I cannot cope if this happens

to me, my life is going to be bad.

We can always pinpoint it back, always

point back to certain core beliefs and

for some people, depending how many triggered

situations they are in, it could escalate.

For others, especially if they have a much more

empowering mindset or they've got parents that were like

that and they, and people are speaking to them

so they're not allowing it to escalate.

It stays a bit more subdued.

But the only reason that your friends and myself that

we escalated that anxiety is because nobody spoke to us.

We filtered it through our already faulty filters and so

it just made it bigger and bigger and bigger.

That's the only reason.

But it always comes back to those limiting beliefs

that everybody's heard of but they don't necessarily know

how to catch and then even if they do

catch them, what do they do with them?

In this context the idea that there is a way

of trying to reprogram people to enjoy freer, better lives

is, is really quite amazing information to me.

It's very, very recent that the idea of neuro linguistic

programming has kind of come into my kind of lexicon

of words and, and this just seems to me

to be an incredible opportunity for so many people to

deal with difficult situations in life.

And I think with the living kind of,

we're living with the anxiety theme in an era

of anxiety seems very, very apt in a way.

We've got kind of difficult political

situation, difficult economic situation, a range

of difficult things with environment, etc.

But the way that we react to

those things can be fundamentally changed

without neglecting or without denying that there

are bad things happening out there.

And I suppose that's one of my

errors in thinking was that people who

were managing to somehow deal with difficult

situations were somehow denying it.

And that is certainly my discussion with

you is absolutely not the case.

If you go into denial, then you're not coping.

You're already not coping.

Because this isn't about having.

Because what happens then is you need to

only be in positive environments where everybody's wonderful

and nice and do they even exist?

This is about being able to be you in a

situation that is not necessarily conducive to you being happy.

You can't stay in that situation, by the way,

because it will eventually have a negative effect.

But what it does do, it allows you to.

The little things at work, the little things in your

relationship, it allows them to be there, but you're not

going to react to them, you're not triggered by them.

But the big things, it allows you to step back

and think, no, this environment is not good for me.

I'm going to take a step out. Yeah.

Whereas if you don't have those mindset skills

where you can handle yourself, you will absorb

all that negativity and you will implode, i.e.,

you'll burn out, you'll start getting jaded, you'll definitely

be highly stressed and you won't be able to

then find your way back to place of.

I can cope with this because you've already

taken on board too much of that stuff.

That is not healthy for us.

So it's not about denying it, it's about recognising it.

Because I have clients who, because mine tends to

be either it's your personal relationship that's going a

bit awry, or it's a workplace thing -

and what people tend, what their friends tend

to say to them is "Just leave. Just leave.

It's their fault is there. If you leave,

you'll be fine."

And as we said before in relation to

mindset, leave the bad relationship, leave the bad

job, leave the bad relationship, leave the job.

This is typical advice, you know, abandon shit if you can't

deal with it or if it's not making you happy.

But again, it comes back to that thing that you've

said, you know, wherever you go, there you are.

And it can be in some situations that

I am the common denominator in this.

In this situation, all these situations. Yeah.

And you need to understand the

difference, because toxic workplace is, is true.

And a really bad relationship,

it's true.

But sometimes it's just about, we're not gelling here and

my ego's getting in the way because I need to

prove I'm right and that other person's ego's get in the way.

No, no, no, I'm right.

But when you don't react, the other person can't react.

And if you fundamentally got a lovely relationship but you

don't agree on the politics, then you learn to not

talk about politics or you learn not to be triggered

when the other person talks about it, as opposed to

letting you get to you, get to you, get to

you, get to you, get to you.

No, we're not compatible. Let's move. Let's leave it.

It's his fault.

Oh, it's her fault. Yeah.

And that's the difference.

And when you said before about it's giving

you your choice back, that's what it is.

I do not believe that just because you've got a toxic

manager or a leader that your first response is, I've got

to go, they're bad, I'm good, I've got to go.

It's about, well, how do I now manage myself in this?

To what level is it toxic?

To what level is it my own triggers?

Because when you get your triggers out the way,

you're much more able to see that person objectively.

And if you can cope with it, then

you can learn how to thrive within it.

Because there are no perfect workplaces, there

are no perfect relationships, there are no

perfect friendships, there are no perfect contacts.

And so if we're always running away, then

how do we then deal with life?

Yeah, we have less.

We certainly can't bring out the best in us if we

can only cope when these people are wonderful and lovely.

This is my perfect work situation.

This is my perfect living situation.

Doesn't work like that, does it? You then have less.

You're minimising yourself and you're making yourself smaller

and smaller and smaller in your life.

I'm thinking, kind of adding together a lot of

the stuff that you've been talking about.

I'm thinking of now most

modern organisations I've worked in.

And you know my story in terms of being in

higher education and having been involved in workers' rights activism,

trade unions, trying to trying to really fight, fight, fight,

fight, you know, this kind of fight approach to, you

know, make our workloads less, you know, take some of

this work away, employ more staff, you know, bring in

fewer students so we can provide better service, so we

can provide better care, so that we can be better

colleagues to one another.

Now this approach is, is a very

aggressive kind of approach in many respects.

I mean, you can go back about this in

a quite positive way by trying to, how you

do these things with managers and work together to

kind of have smarter working workplaces, etcetera.

But a lot of it is based upon fighting.

I was wondering since our last conversation whether perhaps

actually a lot of us, because we've moved into

trade unions as kind of organised entities, essentially whether

we have actually got the tools to learn how

to create transformation within workplaces.

And it occurred to me that after talking to

you the last time, that perhaps all of us

having individual skills where we can manage and navigate

ourselves in workplaces is a perhaps a much more

or perhaps very complementary to what trade unions are

trying to achieve, tool in order for us to

be individually responsible and collectively powerful.

And I wonder whether, whether these are,

whether this is the way forward.

We, we teach people how to, to

self-manage and collectively manage and,

because one of the major problems that I always had in,

in work, and I know that a lot of my colleagues

had in work was saying "no" to things you had a

legal entitlement to do, because lots of people are being pushed

to work way beyond their workload, their contractual hours by a

very long way across multiple trades.

And I certainly know people who are in lower income,

lower paid jobs where they're being asked to do

things where they don't feel that they can say

no, they're worried about, you know, the potential ramifications

or they don't want to displease people.

They don't want to be.

Yet think about where the problem is.

You've just said think about where the real problem is.

They don't want to say no, they don't want to

displease, they don't want to rock the boat because of

the consequences, which it's unlikely, unless you work in a

really, really bad place, that you're just going to get

the sack because you said no.

But other people, because they have not managed

their own emotional intelligence, can use that as

a vehicle to get you back or to,

in some ways you're going to suffer from it. However,

So we have all these people not knowing that

their emotions are not caused by this person out

there, it's by them, their own perceptions. Yeah.

So then you're going to react, this person

says this, you're going to react back.

And that's the, that's why if you are a trade

unionist, if you want to change working conditions which do

need to be changed and do and does need to

be discussed, your first approach is to fight.

Because the more aggressive, which is true in nature, the

more aggressive and big and strong an entity is, much

more power it has to yield over change.

But what you'll find is not only does

it burn you out in fighting that way,

if people are not left with good emotional

resilience skills, that's just going to perpetuate anyway.

So you might win on this front of that you're

going to get more pay or better working conditions.

But if your reactions are, well, it's not enough or

that person said this and that, or it's still not

quite right and you don't know how to deal with

that, you're going to have, you're going to manifest it

in another way and then the fight starts again.

So, but imagine then, because I think the working conditions

bit, I think the working conditions bit is the part

that never changes because that's the complex interpersonal site of

stuff and that's where individuals are being asked to do

things and we know that we're, you know, in a

workplace and particularly, you know, mid-sized to large size

organisations are hugely fragmented with devolved responsibility with managers who

might not really know exactly what the workloads of every

single line managee is and will be asking them to

do things which they don't know exactly how that's panning

out for that individual or their ability to cope.

So then we're looking at these individual employees who

are being asked to do more and more and

more and more or being asked to do things

which they can't deal with, but they're saying yes

because they're afraid of all these different ramifications.

It can be, oh, I'll become an unpopular

member of staff, oh, that manager will think

I'm not a cooperative kind of guy, or

that work will fall onto yet another person

so I need to protect them.

All sorts of kind of fears about saying no because

we're kind of programmed socially to say yes, aren't we?

Especially for women, especially women.

And I had the same issues, really did.

And I know what I'm saying is

counter to, well, you need to fight.

Yeah, I am not saying that those aren't real

issues, but how you as an individual react to

that is - because if you've got a room full

of people who are all reacting negatively to this

situation, nothing good can come out of that.

It doesn't help, it doesn't empower, it

doesn't mean that you're coping any better.

You might get your higher pay, you might

get more stuff, but it still doesn't work.

Because you know that with any strikes that

we have, those people get their conditions made.

Does that automatically create

this wonderful workplace?

Are these people happier?

No, very little has changed.

But if they are empowered that they don't have to

react badly, they can still negotiate, they can still say,

yeah, these conditions don't work and they can still talk

to the other person to create change.

But if they are not empowered and they feel

that the only thing that you can do is

react, but as opposed to, right, okay, I don't

like that that's not working on this front.

And so we're going to talk about

it in that same tone then.

What have you achieved?

What have you achieved?

You go home, you're stressed, you take your stress with

you and you, it will permeate into your relationships.

You then see your friends and all you're talking

about is all the moans and groans, which we

all love to talk about with your friends.

So then you have a moaning, groaning friendship circle, and

then you go out for the night and then you

end up talking about the negative stuff that's happening.

It does not help.

But if you think, yeah, work not great,

work's not great for me at the moment.

And my manager, I'm not sure whether

I want to stay with that person.

But me, I'm okay, I'm okay.

I asked for this.

They don't want to give it me, that's fine.

Now I need to make a decision.

Do I want to stay or do I want

to go, or is there another way around it?

That's what I'm talking about.

That's true empowerment.

We don't want to be reacting.

I was the consummate of a reactor and I

remember so many interactions with people and because of that

insecurity that in paranoia that what I thought they were

thinking about me, I reacted and I thought, I'm going

to get them first and say this mean thing first.

Did not help

I mean, it's kind of

interesting because it doesn't help. No, it doesn't.

It doesn't.

And you know, I, I, it's really interesting to

because I've kind of got almost kind of

two conversations going on in my mind.

I'm listening to you, and then I'm thinking, oh, you

know, I can remember being in the situation where the

people I would actually have to say no to would

be clients, essentially, clients or students and.

And maybe co-workers, people who are asking.

Just lots of people ask me to do things, some

of which went far beyond what I should provide.

And me not being able to say to them because. And.

And not be able to be honest, to say,

"actually, that's not part of my job", or. Yeah.

That "I don't get time to do that. I'm sorry."

And being worried about what they would think of me or

that they might complain about me or that maybe that.

But as a person in a line manager

job that, you know, I should be going

over and above, constantly, over and above.

Maybe I even felt that *over and

above* was just baked into the job.

And I'm convinced now that I was part of

a collective that has been just raising the bar,

raising the bar, raising the bar, raising the bar.

Making the job harder, faster, more awful, Elaine.

Through our inability collectively to say "No,

no, actually, I deserve a good life!" Yes.

This is one of the most controversial things I

get my clients to do is the word "No".

It's really difficult to just say the

word "No." without anything that comes after

it or anything that comes before it.

So we don't do that.

There are so many different ways in which you

can say no that are authentic to you.

Now, when you get into a situation where you're not

overthinking it, you're not triggered by it, you will find

a much more graceful way to say no.

And one of my ways of saying

it is like, "Oh, that sounds interesting.

Not really what I want to do at

this moment in time, but let me...

If you go here, you can do that."

That's how I say no.

Whereas before it was, "No, I'm not gonna do that."

"Why are you asking me to do that?"

And of course they would react back. React.

Because we both feel justified. Yeah.

How dare you say to me, do you know who I am?

And I said, no, really my thing,

but good luck with it, you know?

And you find ways in which you can still

say no and keep your boundaries lovely and crisp.

And the other thing that I want to bring into

this is the reality people will still not like it.

Some people.

Some people will be fine, and some won't.

If you are scared of them not liking you, if you

are scared of what they can do as a result, you

will not say no, you will still keep yourself minimal.

You will raise that bar.

You will make it so that you'll jump through

the all the hoops just to avoid that.

But when you get to a place where

you just think, you know what, I don't

really care what you try and do,

it sends a message to them, it diffuses some

of their power somewhat, not all the time.

And so I coach you in reality that some

people are vindictive, some people are just mean.

And if they've got power, they will use that.

Now, when I was, I worked.

I've done various things in my life and when

I was in, when I stopped teaching to figure

out what am I going to do now, I

got a sales job selling bathrooms and kitchens.

And I actually quite liked it.

But the person that I worked with, he was

a J, I should say, you know, because you

know what that is, He's a J.

And so he wasn't very good.

And he said to me, it was a winter

time and they had a foyer where people could

come in and they put some displays in there.

And he said to me, "right, I want you to

go out there and to hand out these flyers."

So I said, this is when I did say

the word no, I said, no, do that.

But I said, I will stand here and do it.

Oh, no, I'm telling you, I'm your manager.

You get out there.

And actually it wasn't my manager. He was a supervisor.

You get out there and you give out this fly.

So I said, no, I won't stand there.

But I didn't say, but I said, and I will stand

here when people come in so that I am not cold.

Now, one of the things that you learn in

when you say no, that you need to give.

You can't use the word, but is.

Is difficult use the word and.

And you have to give a reason why.

And if you use the word because in that same sentence,

it then validates what you're saying and it gets them,

gives them a reason why you're doing it.

You're not just being obstructive for no reason.

So I did this.

No, not having it for him.

I was a subordinate.

I should do as I'm told.

No, not how I saw it.

So I said, I am very willing to do my job.

I am not saying no, that I am not going to do this.

And I will stand here at the door here where I am.

Do not get cold, right?

He was so upset.

So I did, I went over, stood there, but

I wouldn't go into the cold foyer because.

No, not going to do that.

So the next day at work, he

has a discussion with his manager.

And I explain exactly what I said and why I said it.

And his manager said, yeah, yeah, he's

just been a bit of a J.

Because when you come from an authentic place and

you are not being obstructive for no reason and

you're authentically okay with that other person not liking

it, the way you come across is very different

and it's less combative, less argumentative and they don't

have anything to go on.

So he couldn't say, well, she was being this

and she said that, and she said the other.

He had nothing to say because I just

kept repeating something called the broken record technique.

I just kept repeating what I said in the way

for her to help him to understand and hear why

I was not going to do it in that way. Yeah.

I was not refusing to do my work.

I was not refusing to do my work.

I was not refusing to do my work.

I was refusing to stand in the cold and

do it when I could stand in the warm.

That was it.

And because he had nothing to come back

on, what did he have to say?

He went to the manager, I explained, nothing happened.

And that's the difference.

Because you will get those people and they

will try and make you do things that

you don't want to do for whatever reason.

But as long as you are authentically able to think that doesn't

work for me and I can find a way to make it

work for both of us, I was still going to do it.

The people still want to come through. Yeah.

But if they don't want to do that because it's

an ego trip for them and they think that you're

underneath them and they should do X, Y and Z.

Well, you know, with me, that doesn't work.

So, you know, that's when you can still negotiate, you can

still get to a place where I want these changes.

But they can't use your anger, they can't use you

against you as a defence of not making the changes.

And that's what happens when you use.

Yeah, because you're doing your job.

And what the really powerful thing about what

you're saying is, you'll find you're you getting

the language to help people come across as

being extremely reasonable, competent, excellent workers whilst being

able to say no, but in a way

that doesn't feel like saying no to anybody.

But I'm thinking that even just think about this, people who

might be afraid of saying no and will come at.

Come at me as I would have come at them,

you know, in the past, with all these complex reasons

why it's very difficult to say no, but this, but.

But that, but this, but that.

Actually, these people, I've thought to myself

since kind of moving, since having basically

burning out, completely exploding, coming out of

the workplace and then having.

Being in this liminal space, you know, kind of

during a period of sick leave, starting to regrow

and then starting to socialise, then starting to hang

out with family, then starting to enjoy hobbies, then

starting to feel happy, then starting to feel healthy,

eyesight improving, vascular health improving.

I realised I was saying "No." all the time to

myself, my family, my friends, my health, my happiness,

to a sustainable way of living.

I was just not able to say it in the workplace.

And this realisation

has been like, we're really good at

saying "No." to all the things that matter. To.

I was saying no to

a job that I could enjoy.

And this is the thing.

And this is the kind of thing that

realising that is why I wanted to start this

channel, is why I wanted to have conversations with

you, to have to share the knowledge and expertise

of transformative and transformational women like you and men,

but transformational people and their stories with others.

So I suppose this is kind of the next thing that

I really am keen to get to, is the next part

of your transformation, Elaine, because I love the origin stories.

And then I'll kind of ask you to kind

of talk about how you help and work with

your clients, perhaps to give some examples of situations

where you help people get from X to Y.

But I'm really fascinated with you as a

human being and just literally what happened to

you since you found a way of living.

I'm happy.

Happiness is underrated.

And I did not set out to be happy.

To be clear, not to be.

It depends.

Depends if it's true happiness or

if it's conditional happiness. Yeah.

Because when you're truly happy, like, I.

I'm now so laid back.

There is nobody in my past life

that ever said, "Elaine, she's laid back."

No, no, no.

Now it's like, oh, the camera didn't work. Fine, We'll.

We'll find a way to make it work.

Oh, this didn't work. I can't do it. That's fine.

We'll just find a way.

That was not me.

That was not me.

What's happened as a result of

using / taking my own medicine,

I've become me, the true me, the me

that I wanted to be in those situations,

but not the me that was people-pleasing.

Not the me that thought that if I say

that, then they're going to think that I should

say that and not the me that thinks.

I can't say no, not, not any of that.

It's just me, the way I am.

And now I can accept whether you like me

or not, because for some people, I will grade.

And I think, okay, that's cool, that's cool.

Really think about being who you are,

is that your boundaries get tighter and

that will trigger so many people.

And it's not even because.

And I find it amazing that some of the people that I

know and no longer talk to because they don't like the fact

that I won't do what I don't want to do anymore.

Whereas before I did very compliant, now I won't.

When my clients come to see me, they are invariably

in a very, very, very bad space in their head.

So I've had senior, senior, senior

leaders being bullied by their leader.

All the things that happen at this, this

lower level here happens at the top.

It gets more pernicious and you really, really do

need to know how to play the game.

So the skill, the, the techniques that I would give

somebody that is, is, I won't say just a worker,

but, you know, at that level is very different to

the tactics and the skills and the strategies that you

need when you're at the senior level because there's more

at stake and people are much more clever and they

will utilise your own insecurities against you if they can

possibly get away with it.

And this is where it gets

a little bit, you know, thinking.

So this particular person who was being bullied,

her reaction at the time was like ours.

We would be triggered and we would fight back and

we would try to, to prove that person wrong.

If we can get them to see

that they're wrong, they will change.

Doesn't work, next.

If we can't get to prove that they're wrong,

we need to get people on our side.

People won't take sides.

At least they won't when push comes to the

shop because they've got their own things at stake.

So you're basically, you're left on your own.

And when you are left on your own and

this particular manager's, senior manager's manager, she did the

divide and conquer thing and what she did was

she triggered my manager, my, my leader

she triggered her to react.

And when you react, then other people start

seeing you differently because when there's a narrative

with that, notice how she did that.

All I said was this.

When that starts to be there, you're losing

more and more and more ground because you're

not able to get your mindset to work

for you, because you're in reaction mode.

So I had to teach her how to navigate that.

First of all, she had to be

in that place where she was fine.

She was caught within herself.

And I did say to her at the

time, do not, do not, do not leave.

Do not, do not give it your job until much later.

She didn't listen, she left and it was fine.

But what can happen is you get this, this.

This great feeling of empowerment.

You think, I can do this, and you start to

handle yourself better and you think, I can go now.

But you need to be tested again to make sure

that the skills and the mindset that you have has

integrated or you will just repeat them in another place.

Yeah.

And so all of those caveats in mind, my clients come

to me in a state of emotional and mindset disrepair.

I find out what is going on.

And this isn't about saying everybody

else is wrong and you're right.

That's not how it works.

This is about they said and did this. I get it.

You're reacting like this. Does it work? No.

Let's change it. Yeah.

So then I figure out what strategies that this person

needs to be able to first of all cope.

Then what they need to then cope a bit better.

Then what they need to thrive. Yeah.

And it is a continuum.

Because I can't just say to you, oh,

just think like this and you're fine.

No, doesn't work like that.

Because now I have to untangle all those knots.

You think about the path from A to Z and it's.

It's going all over the place like this.

And so your reactions, I need to untangle all that and

make it nice and straight for you so that you can

think in a way that is empowering to you.

And that's the only reason that I could stand there

and say, no, I'm not going to do this.

And this, this is a way we can do it, to make it work.

Yeah, don't listen to me.

That's not my problem, that's yours.

I'm being.

I'm not saying I'm not doing X, Y and Z. I'm doing.

I'm doing my job, but I'm doing it in

a way that works as a win-win.

That person didn't want to listen, not my problem.

I don't need to take that on board

with this particular person because the, her manager

was using the divide and conquer.

It was so difficult. So.

And she, she had what

got those orders called disciplinary.

She'd had that put on because there

was physical evidence, there was evidence from

other people saying how she reacted to

this boss being really, really, really sneaky.

And so it was easy to put her in disciplinary

where she could get rid because that's what she wanted.

And I'm like, no, we're not going to allow that.

We're not going to allow that.

And so all of this is about, okay, I've

got to get this person to feel strong enough

on the inside and understand where they stand.

No, you're not gonna get anybody sticking up for

you because it's their job on the line.

This person doesn't necessarily have the skills to

be able to cope with that person.

But yes, you can win in as much as you

can stop it from affecting your mindset so that when

you do leave, you're not taking that with you.

And that in some cases, that's as much as we can do.

Yep.

Another client that I had, she didn't just,

she didn't cope well in life.

And she went down the depression route, went

to the doctors, doctors gave her pills and

pushes her on antidepressants and she couldn't do anything.

She had to still live at home with

her parents, even though she was an adult.

She couldn't have a relationship because

she couldn't relate to people.

And so when she came to me, it was like, help.

So again, I had to think, right?

The first protocol was to get an emotionally strong.

So she can get off antidepressants because as much

as they help, they do not help long term

in helping you to think the way you need

to be able to think and cope with life.

Because we're not going to be in situations

where it's all wonderful and Pollyanna ish.

So we went through, looking at what was it

she was thinking that enabled her to react in

a depressive state as opposed to my anxious state.

And those were those beliefs that I found did those.

And so she got to a place

where she could come off antidepressants. Bingo.

First place.

Now we are rebuilding her from the inside

out so that she could then cope.

And to this day, because she still comes to me

every now and then for a top up, you know,

whatever, to this day, she's not on antidepressants.

I say you're not allowed to call it antidepressants.

You talk to me first. Yeah.

You're not allowed to go down that.

Because it doesn't lead anywhere. Great.

Even though I know for some it

can be a lifesaver. For her,

it kept her stuck in a place

where she wasn't functioning in life.

I mean, obviously kind of depression is a complex

one because it's a medical label and there's a

baggage of symptoms that come with it.

But of course that there are specific kind of

situations where it's not going to be the solution

because it can't help the solution if it's a

toxic relationship, if it's a toxic working relationship.

And there is stuff in us that needs also rewiring in

order to help us to be able to navigate those situations

that no pills or potions will be able to address.

And so I take 100% on board

everything that you're saying in this regard.

And it seems to me that this could be if

every single member of a workforce were able to develop

these skills, no matter how toxic the boss, we afford

them power through, complying, I suppose, with things

we don't feel we should be complying with.

And this is a way of removing that power in

a very gentle and yet powerful way by us getting

power as individuals so that we can go into many

and most situations and still manage them.

And if that doesn't work, if the workplace is

still not enriching, because I think that's where you're

trying to help your clients get to, is how

can you have your best life, everywhere?

Definitely! Definitely! It really is.

I devoured the self-help books and I believed

it was true, that you could be like that.

And I am in a place where I don't live in a big

mansion, I don't have fancy cars, I'm not rich, but I'm happy.

And for me that was, you're rich in the right things.

This is. I would actually.

I call myself the.

The richest woman on the planet because I'm rich in

the things that are that align with my definition

of success, which is not about material wealth.

I wouldn't romanticise poverty.

No, but

I don't think I need lots of coins

you know, in order to be very happy, in

fact, I need friendship, connection, exciting conversations like this.

I need to have, you know, intellectual stimulus.

I need to have, you know, love, family, all

these are the things that really matter to me.

And I think, you know, personally, I think that's

what really matters to all of us at humans.

We've lost our way a bit with the

whole, you know, abundance in, in monetary wealth.

But of course, horses for courses.

But yeah, you help people to find their

path, that matters to them and, and to

help them.

To them, it's to them.

Because I do not believe just because

the workplace isn't great that you should

leave and become self-employed.

No, no, I believe that you, if you've got

the mental skills, if you've got your mindset working

for you, then you can you decide if you

want to work for somebody else, absolutely fine.

If you want to rise to the top and

get to the top of that tree, absolutely fine.

Still, it's not about getting out the workplace.

The workplace is a bad place.

You're working dollars for what is that?

Same way you time for money or whatever.

And I think no, it can be

enriching, it can be a wonderful experience.

And if I'd had this when I was at

work, I would still be working for other people.

I didn't really, maybe I maybe wouldn't.

I'm not sure about that, but I might have been.

I didn't have a choice at the time.

I needed to get this under

control because I was overreacting.

I remember once somebody, their car broke down saying this

to my brother the other day, like their car broke

down and I was just in such a bad place.

They said, can we use my jump leads

on your car to get the car started?

And I said no because they hadn't been nice to me

in the workplace because I hadn't been nice to them.

I was very, very different person than I am now.

So I didn't have good relationships.

And I can look back and see why I overreacted.

I was very combative and very argumentative.

So when she asked me for that and I said no,

I literally went home and left her to phone the AA

when a pair of jump leads could have just helped.

But no, that's how mean I had gotten.

Because I did not know how to

cope with the pushback that I got.

Because I saw myself as right and they were wrong.

I had no good interpersonal skills except

with children, but with adults, no.

And so because I got so much negative pushback,

I had to get to the place of wondering,

well, is it me or is it them?

And then what tends to happen is if you

are in that place, you will attract other people

that will reinforce that behaviour and that attitude as

being okay, so what I had around me were

people saying, no, you were in the right.

You should have said that.

You should have said this.

But didn't that help me?

Did it help me?

Oh, I was the one that went to work and nobody was.

No, that's not true. They did speak to me, but

they didn't like being around me.

Yeah, I was the one that was being ostracised

or gossiped about and I could do nothing because

my behaviour had previously shown them that I was

not the greatest person to be around.

Very, very good at my job, couldn't get

a better worker, but not great with people.

So then it push came to shove and I think I had to.

It was like one of those moments where

maybe this is me, them definitely me.

And that's when my real journey started into figuring out, right,

how do I stop me doing the things that I've done

and didn't know was a bad thing to do?

Because contrary to what people may think, just because

you're a micromanager or just because you are even

bully boss to a degree or you're not very

personable or whatever, it doesn't necessarily know mean that

you know you're doing that because you're filtering it

through your own perceptions.

We always tell a very good

story about ourselves, to ourselves anyway.

So probably most people who are micromanagers or

bad bosses do not realise that because they'll. They'll.

They'll have their fans probably around them.

He'll be telling them, oh, you're an amazing boss.

And our family members and our mums and

dads say, oh, you're an amazing human being.

And that's a story that we'll always select.

So we're probably not conscious of that.

That's true.

Yeah.

And this is true. So.

And so even if you did know, let's just say

if you get to what you think, oh, maybe.

Maybe I did overreact a bit.

Do you necessarily know what to do with that now?

Can you change?

Does reading the affirmations, reading the

books, does it help you to change. That's it.

You're reading this post on LinkedIn,

does that help you to change? No.

There's more work, but you do need to

start with a realisation that maybe there's a

bit of me in this somewhere. Maybe.

Or if you don't want to go

from that thing, maybe it's about.

Then you think, well, actually, I

want this X reaction here. I want this.

What do I now need to do to get this?

Even if you're not coming from a place that you're

at fault, maybe you're thinking, I need more extra skills

because I want this kind of reaction now.

Because that person there is popular and

I want to be like that.

That's what I did. Yeah. I did them both.

I was like, well, I want that.

Why am I not like that? Yeah.

Why are people not saving me a

place when we go into the refectory? Yeah.

And so it was like, we need to find that trigger

thing that helps us to motivate us to do the work

that we need to do to get this under our control. Yeah.

And the outcome is still good. Yeah.

We get to be nice around people, we get

to be strong if we need to be.

We get to be assertive, we need to keep

our boundaries, but we get to be nice people.

So when you take on your clients, you're

starting this position where you're trying to work

out where they are in life. Yes.

And you're starting to try and kind of rewire

them through neuro linguistic programming techniques to try and

get them to change this deep belief system.

So are you working with their kind of unconsciousness

or their kind of subconscious in some way?

Yeah, definitely. Absolutely.

You can't make changes in any other way.

There is a different school of thought.

There is a school of thought that if you repeat

something over and over and over and over and over,

going on and on and on, you will eventually integrate.

It doesn't.

But the thing about that is one, it

takes years, and two, it comes up again.

So let's say you said I am wonderful, I am a

nice calm person, but you're still being your bouncy self and

then erratic and just being a bit more schizophrenic.

That belief has nowhere to sit.

It's like, well, no we're not.

Because is this thing bound?

Is that being calm? No.

So that's why that doesn't work.

So you need to undo the reason why you have

that in a situation which is like negative or whatever.

When you undo it, then you can look

at, you will actually become more calm. Yeah.

So that does not happen on that conscious level.

It has to happen at the unconscious level.

And it's just, it's just the same as when you go to

the cinema or when you're sitting watching your film

on Netflix or Sky or whatever it is. Yeah.

And you're so absorbed in that film that

you have, you, you suspend disbelief and you

take on board that that's a good character.

Oh, what's going to happen next?

Your unconscious mind is allowed, is allowing that is

allowing you to be open to this suggestion of

it being real because we know it's not.

It's on the screen.

That's the place where the work can begin.

That's why years and years and years

ago there's this thing called subliminal messaging.

And they would, they.

It was banned apparently, but they said that what

would happen is you'd be watching something and in

the background our unconscious minds and our visual sense

can pick up on things that we can't necessarily

consciously and we will take them on board.

And that's why if you, if you go to a

hypnotherapist, they can create change because they're working with the

unconscious level of your mind which doesn't have the filters

like your conscious level of the mind.

So your conscious level

has the gate. Yeah.

And it won't let anything through

unless you already believe it.

But the unconscious is much more open.

That's why children will take on board

and absorb so much more because they're

not yet developed that conscious critical factor.

Yeah, that makes sense.

So we need to now, as adults get to

that place when, if you read anything to do

with personal development, self-help, personal growth, it will

always say, if you want somebody else to change,

you need to build rapport first.

Now all rapport is, is liking. We've got rapport.

We like each other, we click.

We don't know each other, but

we're having a lovely conversation.

That's rapport.

So you're less likely to sit

there going, not sure about that.

Yeah, because we built rapport and you're open to it.

Okay.

It's an interesting perspective.

I will take that on board.

But if you look at the body language of

people that are critical or assessing you, they will

show it in their mannerisms in some way or

another that you know that they're not quite being.

Yes, exactly, exactly.

We know it, don't we? Yeah.

And then you also know when people

are open because like me,

I'm open, my arms are doing all of this. Yeah.

And you're sitting there and your

head is leaned and you're thinking.

Yeah, yeah, that's interesting.

Not thought of it quite like that.

And this is what happens when people come to see me.

I need to get them into that state.

And then I use the jiggery pokery of asking a

question and going through a process where if you believe.

Let me just.

Let's say, for instance, when you were in

one of your situations, that wasn't empowering.

Tell me, what were you thinking at the time?

Probably.

Oh, that. Oh, God.

Says a lot, doesn't it?

Yeah, yeah, it does, yeah. Did you have a.

Oh, God, I Did you have.

Oh, I can't do this, or they're being a thingy.

If I say this, then they're going to like me.

Did you have all of that going on?

All of that conscious level?

Because I think it's tacit.

I think it's so tacit.

And I think we can feel it in our stomach.

Our gut is probably trying to communicate

a huge amount to us because.

And I've recognised this recently, that when I go

against my gut, whether it's buying, you know, in

the past, I don't have a car now, but

I used to buy secondhand cars.

And my gut would tell me, there's something wrong here.

And I would talk to the owner, typically a

man, he'd say, "Oh, no, no, no, you're just

a woman, you don't know very much about cars." Yeah.

Every time that car would turn out to

last maybe a couple of weeks.

And my gut was telling me, if you thought

that sounded like diesel and it's a petrol car, there's a problem!

Exactly.

Now, that the reason why you went against your gut is

because you have this perception of this belief or beliefs that

say it was okay to trust this man and maybe it

was me, maybe he was right and you would have all

that story and within that narrative, I would then take out

all the things that you actually believe that make it work,

that make that trigger you into complying in a way that

was not to your benefit. Yeah.

That bit there, you twiddle with

that, you get the change.

But if you don't recognise that you're thinking that thing

in the first place, what are you twiddling with?

Not a lot.

And the skill in what I do comes

from identifying what that trigger is for you,

what that belief system stem is for you.

What are those beliefs for you?

And they are usually if then there are more.

But the if then works.

If I say no to the gentleman, then he's

going to think X about me and that would

mean that I am an irrational female.

If you have stuff around being female and, oh, you've got

stuff around, you've got to be right or you've got to

know it, you got to appear in a certain way with

all of that narrative, you can find those beliefs, take them

out and those are the ones that help you to or

make you do the thing you don't want to do.

I change that.

You won't do it, you just won't.

Because if you think about another situation where

your friend has said something to you and

you think, I would never do that, you

have a different mindset than her or him. Yeah.

And if they had that, if I could give you

that belief or if you could give your friend your

believe, they would react in the way that you do.

Does that make sense?

So it's all about just finding what

that is and twiddling with it. Yeah.

And then when you twiddle with it in

the right way, you change your perception.

Because we do it all the time.

Just like when we were growing up, lots of us

were brought up on the idea that Father Christmas.

And then you get to a place

where you don't believe it anymore.

Exactly the same thing.

You no longer believe it.

It's no woo woo happened,

it's a natural processing that we do.

But some of us who have been trained have

learned how to consciously work with that same phenomenon.

Where you once believe that there were bogeys

under the bed, you no longer believe that.

What happened?

How did you go from there to there?

It's not just a childhood thing.

This is a human thing.

It's a human way of processing information.

So if you know how to tap into that and you

think, right, okay, what's the quickest way to get you to

be here without having to spend years of growing and realising

that no, that was never true in the first place.

That's all it is.

Fantastic.

Now I know from our pre-discussion that you have

a second prop that has a story behind and I

wonder if you can bring this prop out.

This is my second. Right.

Let me give you the context.

This was back when I was so desperate to be normal.

That was my thing at the time.

All I wanted to do was to feel normal.

And I had such anxiety and I thought, like a

lot of people think that if you face your fear,

you go head on, it will somehow bust it open

and you'll never feel that fear again. Not true.

But that's what I believed.

This is what I did at the time.

I was doing some of my NLP coaching and I

had a site called, as you can see here, banish.

Does it say banish?

Anxiety, Anxiety symptoms.

Wow.

So what I did, I thought, okay, I'm still

feeling anxious and I want to promote myself.

I sat there and cut out all these

letters, you know, did my teacher thing, stuck

them on a T shirt, put this on.

And I thought, this is what I'll do.

I'll drive to the centre of Manchester, park my

car and I'll walk from the car all the

way to the train station, pass all those people.

I had social anxiety at the time. Yeah.

And I'll walk all the way back and that will be it.

Once I can do that, I can do anything.

So I make it.

I do my [...]

I put it on the back and the front.

Yes, I put it on and I drive all the way to Manchester.

I park up at the university because that's 1M.

And I walk from the university to the

train station, Piccadilly train station with that on.

And every step I took, I was good thinking that

if I can do this for that length of time.

So it was what, 20 minutes?

10 minutes, 10, 15 minutes there.

10, 15 minutes back to the car.

If I could do that, I'd bust open my fear.

What happened?

I had a panic attack.

Well, I had more than one.

And it set me back.

It set me back months because.

Just because I could psych myself up, I could put this

on, and it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I could walk in front of people because.

But then what it did,

it triggered what I thought they were all thinking because they

were looking at me, and I wanted them to look at

me because I thought if I can get them to look

at me and feel comfortable, then I would be fine.

No, it just played on

the paranoia and the insecurities.

So by the time I got to the train station and by

the time I got back to the car, I was a wreck.

I could not do anything at all.

It didn't work.

And so that's what that was.

My last foray down into the CBT, I thought,

no, there's got to be a better way.

What did work was figuring out what was the thinking that

led me to think that I needed to feel panicked and

insecure when I was having people looking at me.

That was the route to getting me to not.

I'm okay with anything like that now.

It wasn't just facing your fear.

It wasn't just pushing through fear.

Those are the most detrimental things that you can do.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

No, no, no, no, no.

So whenever you read anything that says you

need to push through your fear, don't.

Whenever you read anything that says that you

need to face it head on, no, don't.

Because if you're not emotionally ready for it,

you will do more harm than good.

Yeah, because it sounds great, doesn't it?

I push through my fear.

I'm now invincible like that.

Our mindset is there to protect us.

And if we see a threat, it is designed to

help us to fight or flee or, you know, whatever.

And if we are not able to

do that, it's because our mind is.

Is protecting us.

So we need another way in.

And the other way in is to find

what that string of those words are.

What is that that we say to ourselves

that makes it so that the only way

we can react is to feel panicked, because it's tangible.

It's literally tangible.

Because if you say, I am scared of black dogs, and every

time I go near a black dog, it's going to bite me.

If you believe that to be true, are you going

to put yourself in front of a black dog.

No, you're just not.

But then if you can think, and even when

people say, well, no, because you know your neighbour's

got a little black dog and you're okay with

that, and you say, yeah, I am.

And you say, well, then you've seen the

black dog on the TV and that's fine.

It's cool.

All that is just playing with your logic.

It is not playing at the emotional place where

you think, no, I'm so scared of black dogs.

But what it can convince you to do is to try it.

But what it can't convince you to do is to try

it a second time because you're still scared of black dogs.

So you'll just avoid.

So in a situation at work or in your

relationship where confrontation is not good for you, will

you say to your partner, I didn't like the

way you left the toilet seat up?

No, you'll just suck it in and you'll start

to feel anger and resentment at the fact that

they should know that you don't like that.

And that's when all that starts to play out.

Or if you go into work and your colleague

borrows your stapler, which is my thing, don't bother.

My things, don't like it. So I.

Instead of just saying, excuse me, I get it, you need

a stapler, but I got a thing about my stapler.

That's what I do now.

Gotta think about it.

I get really irrational.

So don't, don't, please don't take it.

That's what I say.

And they think that's okay.

My statement still stays there.

And I am okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're creating healthy boundaries with people in a

nice way that explains where you're coming from

and why it matters to you.

At the same time, if they keep doing

the thing anyway, you know, the toilet seat

thing, I think that's a perpetual thing.

That's an [...] thing. Yeah.

Sometimes we just have to, you know, go.

Just learn to learn to be easy with that.

But, yes.

Are there any questions that I should have

asked you that you think are important in

order for people to know the answer?

Because I know that you're spending now so

much time effectively paying it forward, giving back

to the world and working with clients from

very, very diverse backgrounds to help them.

And you work with individuals and potentially with

firms and organisations too.

I haven't in the past just because of the agenda if a

workplace employs me to go in and to do my thing.

Because my thing is real change, not

just this lovely feel good thing.

And they are, they are toxic.

They're not good to work for.

I can't in all honesty say that I want

to help these people stay in that situation.

So it's competing agendas there.

That's why I like to work with individuals.

The question that you could have asked

me, I don't think there is anything.

The only thing that I want to get across

to people is just look at your results.

Just look at all the things that you've read, all

the things that you're doing now to help you to

be better, 'better in your life'.

Is it working if you're not getting the

results and that thing isn't effective enough?

Because it might sound good, it might feel good in

the moment, but if you're constantly having to get yourself,

psych yourself up to do whatever it is that you

need to do, then you need to think that, well,

actually that's not effective enough for what you want.

Because I change fundamentally on the inside.

I change my clients fundamentally on the inside.

I get them saying, oh, you never

guess what I was like at work.

Oh my gosh, I would.

I said this and I said that and I said the other.

You don't get that from reading an affirmation.

Yeah, you get the feel good buzz thing, but you

don't get the fundamental change that when that person overspeaks

you and you sit back and you don't say anything

this time, say, excuse me, I get it, you want

to talk, but let me say my thing first.

Yeah, and that's the change.

And so it's just about look at your results.

If you're not getting the changes that you believe

all the effort you put into that you should

be, quote, unquote, should be getting, then something is

not right with some of the tactics or the

strategies that you're, you're using.

And it will, will, will, will,

will be your mindset stuff.

It will be those limiting beliefs, it will be

your perceptions that need a tweak and a change.

So that's the biggest message I want to

get across to people because it is possible

to be in a place around these.

And I'll caveat this again, yes, you can be

around these negative people, but you will have to

take stage, exit left at some point because you

will be negatively affected if you're staying in that

situation and you haven't got the mindset to cope.

And even after a while, you still

need to get yourself out of that.

Yeah, if it's really that bad.

But apart from that in

our normal interactions every day.

Like, if you're triggered by the fact that I

used to get triggered by the weather, I mean,

this is how bad things were for me.

Like, yeah, the gloves, the weather.

If I wanted to go out, it was a summer, you

know, in the uk, it rains a lot and it rained.

I would be angry.

Angry.

You've got to ask yourself, because it must

be so distressing and awful to be. To be living that.

But it's just one of the worst places in.

On the globe.

Angry at the weather.

You understand when this gets away from you, you know?

Yeah.

You've got to ask yourself, was that

reaction really was really a good one? No.

When you're in that place, you've

got to choose something different.

You need to find someone, i.e.,

me or anybody that works with the unconscious.

Not anybody, actually, because. Anyway.

But you need to find those people that

work at the unconscious level of the mind. Safely.

Yeah, safely.

So that you can change that reaction automatically.

You don't need to think about it, you

don't need to do any affirmations on it.

But if you're having to quit, keep topping yourself up, like,

you know, your top up and the old mobile phones, if

you're having to do that, the thing doesn't work because you

want it to work under pressure, under stress.

Because our reality is we're going to

be around people that aren't very nice.

We're going to be around people that

are going through their own stuff and

it's going to affect how they interact. Right.

We don't want to be triggered every

time we're around somebody like that.

So if you're not able to cope with all of

that, the thing that you're doing now isn't working.

It's not effective enough.

That's the biggest message I want to get across

to people and you need to change something.

You need to come to see me or somebody

that looks at the unconscious of the mind safely. Yeah.

Yep.

That's my biggest mess.

How do people get in contact with you, Elaine?

So I'll leave, you know, details of your

LinkedIn profile as well as your domains

that they can get in contact with you with

your email, in the show notes.

But in terms of, can people just reach out for you with

a DM or just send an email, Send me an email.

Send me a DM and saying, yeah,

view and tell me a bit more. Absolutely fine.

Doesn't need to go anywhere, but I will put

you in the right direction because what I'm listening

out for is whether one, I can help you

and to whether you're ready to be helped.

Because as much as it sounds wonderful,

because imagine everybody like this, some people

are simply not ready to be helped.

And so I won't take you on board if you're not ready.

So I will be assessing that when I speak to you.

And that's the best thing for you to understand that.

You may know that your hobby, playing around with other

women, is wrong, but if you're willing to stay in

that relationship, it will have a negative effect.

And if you're not ready to

deal with that, that's absolutely okay.

And so what I tend to do with those kind

of people is I say this is where you're at

and you understand that this is a consequence.

And they say yeah.

So as long as you're okay with that,

okay with not being okay, that's cool too. Yeah.

So, yeah, reach out to me.

DM me. With the show notes,

you can find contact forms or whatever.

Contact me that way too.

Brilliant stuff.

Well, I mean, it's been one of the most exciting

meetings actually for me ever to have met you and

to have enjoyed two conversations, including this one.

And I'm so grateful to you for making

the time to come onto the show.

And I would really love to get you back at some

point in the future because I think there's a whole range

of things I had in my kind of loose agenda in

terms of wanting to talk to you about.

I think that we've kind of covered just a

couple of those and there's so much yet to

discuss where I think I can see that working

with you would be an amazing opportunity and probably

very, very therapeutic for organisations where you're able to

work people like you and you in particular.

I think working with individuals to bring about individual

transformations could be a collective goal.

And so you're an amazing woman, Elaine Blidgeon,

and thank you so much.

You are so welcome.

It's just great because I like to talk.

And do you know when we meet people online or in

In person and you just click and

you just connect, it is a truly.

This is wonderful.

It's a lovely feeling and I enjoy

speaking to you, Nicky, because you're just

a kindred spirit and I like that.

So thank you so much for inviting me to

this interview. Love it.

And that wraps up the conversation

with the amazing Elaine Blidgeon.

I hope you found it as

inspiring and insightful as I did.

If you enjoyed this episode of the

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And remember, it's never, ever

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