❤️ Improve intimacy, connection and the quality of relationships with this skill set ✨

productive little fucker. And it's like, not even 7am, which is my favourite feeling when you you've just got your shit together, you know. So I've gone to Pilates, I've got my Pilates. Sorry, I've got my celery juice with me, I've prepped all of my veggies for the week. And here I am recording a podcast. This is something that I am very, very,

very passionate about. And this is something that I feel like, without actually really intentionally recognising it or realising it, I feel like this is pretty much been my life's work and is probably a very good indicator of why I've been why I have gravitated towards the careers that I've gravitated towards, but also why I really do believe that the most incredible thing in my life are the relationships that I have, and that I've nurtured and that I've created and that honestly

just light up my fucking soul. So I just had the most beautiful weekend and every single time, every time I sit in gratitude, I'm just overwhelmed by the quality of relationships in my life. And to some extent, I feel like this has always been something that's kind of quite natural to me, I was a people person from the time I could speak, I loved people I loved understanding people, I was really social. And it just it did, to some extent come naturally. And because I love

people so much. And it's just it's one of my core values. So for those of you who have done level up or are doing it right now you're at week two, and you've gone deep into your values, relationships, and connection has just always been my top three, it's probably my top one. And that has really you can see how that's manifested in

my life. Like I said, I just, I just had ingratitude over the weekend, I had a few different lunches with some really, my two of my best friends caught up with them, like just, it makes me so happy. And one friend is one of my besties, who I've been friends with since I was 14. The other one is only in the last three or four years. And it just out there relationships, which feels like home. And I was

thinking about it. And this is a common theme in my life where even when I was a teacher, the relationships I had with the kids were honestly, almost not normal. Like I actually went for a beach walk with one of my old students just this weekend. And I taught her when she was in the eighth. Now she's a 1918. And like just living her best life, which made me so happy to catch up and chat. And I got really

close to my colleagues. And I think while it's always been natural to me, the more I delved into, and this was very, it's very interesting looking back, like I did law and communications as my first degrees. So one of my degrees was all about understanding how to communicate and how to get a point across and how to influence and how to impact and I just love it because it's an art form to me, like human psychology and all of that stuff is such an art, which is why I

love writing. And I love speaking and I love putting together a craft, which is going to get a message across. And with that, at the same time I was doing law. So I was understanding like mediation and getting opposing parties to sort of come to an agreement and see eye to eye and mitigate things through conversation and

communication. And so while I was studying, I was also really interested in like understanding human psychology and how can you get people to who don't see eye to eye to come together and improve relationships. And so I was doing something that came naturally. But then I was really getting down on the nitty gritty of the actual strategies and the understanding of human psyche, which obviously, in the last five years, I've gone even more balls to the wall in and it's

just improved. And also I'd say it's been a massive, massive, massive reason I would say why my business has did well quite quickly. Because I would get a few clients. I remember even when I started, I had people come straight into my business, who didn't they just knew of me from the school that I taught at because I had a reputation for as a teacher who really, really understood and got kids and was able to speak their language to get them what they needed to

get. And because of that, like I said, I think I've mentioned on the podcast before I'm sure I have my business started I was a mindset coach for teenage girls, and so I barely needed to advertise because the second people found out that I was leaving the education system to

do. So parents from that school and their friends all started reaching out, not because I was the greatest English teacher, because I'm fantastic at communicating to arrive variety of people and stakeholders, and I have a really genuine understanding of what makes people tick. And so I believe this has helped me in my

business. I believe this has helped me with my clients, I believe this has helped me to understand myself better, which in turn, really enables me to seek the kind of relationships that actually expands me, but also to nurture them and navigate periods of change and transition, which has been honestly like, even in my marriage, and in my relationship, we've gone through so many periods of growth and change and contraction, and

we've navigated it together. And a lot of it, I believe, is because of my skills and communication and understanding human psyche. And I want to talk about it and I want to use this episode I've never actually gone through and given practical strategies and tips. This is something I work on with my clients. It's something that we do, largely inside my course true confidence, which is honestly becoming one of its it's just, it's becoming a baby

very much like level up. And I've only run it once I'm going to run it again before the end of this year, because I found, this was something that just came up for so many people when you go through periods of change. And all of a sudden there's there's some roofs in relationships, or maybe your kids are going through changes and you don't understand how to communicate with them. Or maybe with your colleagues, you just don't feel heard. I hear this

come up often. And what I've found is that the more you understand human behaviour, the more you understand what makes you tick, and others take the more you understand the human psyche. And the more you spend time investing in skills in communication, because this is the thing, communication is a skill set. And I will say as much as I rag the education

system. One of the things I absolutely adored about being a senior English teacher was how strong the curriculum was in teaching communication skills, not just in analytical essays and things but in nonverbal in body language, in hand gestures in tonality, all of this stuff is massive, massive, massive. And so I having an understanding of this, I I've put this into a course, which is true

confidence. And it's it's honestly, Game Changing once you understand the psyche and the human element to it, but also the practical tangible skill set sets that you can employ to improve every relationship. And how will you know when maybe you need to do this, you'll start to notice things like nobody hears me you'll say things like, I don't feel understood. And it could be maybe it's in your marriage, maybe it's in your

romantic relationships. And you have this sense of like, he just doesn't get me she just doesn't get me. I'm not feeling seen understood. I don't feel appreciated. Maybe you've noticed underlying, bubbling resent building up and you're not really addressing it, maybe you're blaming, and there's a lot of like cattiness in your relationships, and maybe this is coming from you, maybe this is

coming from the other person. It could be that there's a lot of dysregulated dysfunctional conversations where everything's good until it just fucking isn't. And it just flies off the handle. And nothing good happens because it just escalates to a point where there's screaming and cattiness and then maybe it just shuts down. And you might have different dynamics at play where one person escalates and, you know, leans in and wants to go more and more and more wants to relay and then the other

person shuts down. So there's so many ways that this can play out. And in most cases, I would say, every single time I say and like I said, could be a interpersonal relationship that you've got in your personal life, it can be with clients, where you're just actually finding that you're not speaking the same language, or they're not getting it or they're not getting the results. This for coaches particularly is huge.

Sometimes when your clients aren't getting results, or they're not taking action, there might actually be it's not it might not be them thing, it might not be them thing, it could be that you're not actually hearing, you're not listening for what the actual problem is, and therefore you're dancing around the issue. And again, this is an issue with understanding human psyche. This is an issue with communication skills. This is a thing that

needs to be addressed. Because like I said, it's a skill set. And my belief, I really start with this. So you've obviously heard the quote, It takes two to tango, right? It takes two to tango. And while this is true, as it takes two humans in a relationship to work on the relationship to build the relationship to nurture the relationship, of course, it always takes too However, in some cases, I don't necessarily believe this. I don't necessarily always believe this.

When you take complete ownership and complete responsibility for all of the dynamics and relationships in your life, what I have found is one person can completely change, transform and expand the dynamics of one relationship. I have done this personally, in a couple relationships that I can think of, there have been a couple in my life where I noticed over the years, there was just so much water, water under the bridge that I was personally struggling

to let flow to let go. I was holding on to things and I was bringing that with the relationship. And I just couldn't let it get deeper. I couldn't lean in I couldn't trust when I did my work behind the scenes on my own, to get to the underlying root cause of like, okay, why am I not letting this go? Why am I bringing this with me? Why am I feeling this underlying nastiness? Why am I doing this?

When I did my work, and I was able to internally resolve some of the things going on, I was able to change the way I showed up in that relationship. And what do you know, the whole relationship felt better, because I took responsibility, because I looked at what was my stuff, and then I was able to communicate from a higher frequency. And of course, that person feels that. The other way that this plays out and has played out in another relationship in my life was that

I took full responsibility. And instead of blaming and being like, this person doesn't get me this person doesn't listen, this person. And what I would notice is I would shut down or I would get Catty, I again took responsibility and changed the way I was showing up and started to intentionally change my responses, work on my triggers, and show up in a more loving and understanding and compassionate

way. And that person really felt that and that person in return leaned right in and the whole dynamic changed, the whole dynamic changed. So yes, it takes two to tango. But I also believe that one person can completely transcend the energetics of a relationship and shift the dynamics. So yes, we want to take full responsibility. Of course, we don't want to take over responsibility, where we're making everything and, you know, sometimes it's not an us thing.

But you will know the difference, you will know when it's your triggers and your wounds that are playing out. And you can also feel when somebody else's wounds are rubbing, and it's probably not your issue, you know the difference, but when it is, and it often is, when you are feeling kind of triggered in your relationships, it's probably something to work

on personally. And what I'll say to that is, when it doesn't feel like this is yours, when it doesn't feel that, like it's not rubbing your wound, it's not a trigger for you, you just sent this energetic, there's something funky coming from the other person, you can still take responsibility, meaning use your communication skills to address it, and to give that person an opportunity to potentially say what might be going on. But as that's as far as that goes. And the rest of it really probably

isn't your issue. However, I do believe you will know when it's yours. And you will know when it's theirs. And with the right communication skills, you're able to address it anyway. So I'm going to move forward. And we're going to bring the assumption that the relationship and I want you to bring to your awareness bring to your attention, perhaps a relationship that you can think of in your life that maybe you

would like to improve. Maybe for some reason, you just don't feel like there's enough intimacy or connection as you would love. Maybe you feel like you've got some underlying resent, or cattiness or there's just this frequency within you where you can't feel fully safe around this person or potentially, when you're around them, you feel quite triggered. Maybe it's a person who you just always have a bit of like beef with. There never seems to be long without really things blowing up. Maybe

it's even with your kids. And this is this is something that I find just I wish yeah, like I say that like everything that I teach and speak about and you know, even my office inside my business, it comes from the place of I wish this was all taught at school. I wish every single human understood the

human psyche. Because when you understand this, and you can communicate with people, there's really so much that we can teach children as well and you can't keep you can't give what you don't have so embodying this work, I believe is so important if you have kids, because you're going to teach them how to communicate how to self regulate how to nurture relationships, and relationships are probably the most the most important thing for our mental well being

and longevity. So I think it's just such an incredible skill set and such a beautiful thing to invest your time and energy into but like I said, I'm I'm going to move ahead. And I want you to bring to your awareness somebody or a relationship where potentially, you just know that

there's room for improvement. So the first thing I'm going to say, and I'm going to go through just some practical tips, I'm obviously not going to go through understanding the human psyche, understanding yourself on the real deep, subconscious level, all of that is in true confidence. And if this is something that interests you, I would just keep your eye out on your inbox. I will be opening that in the next month or so.

But for now, I actually just want to give you some really 10 tangible tips and practical things that you can start to use in your life, which will improve the relationships and quality of relationships in your life. So the first thing that I'm going to say, and I say this all the time, your triggers are your greatest teachers. Your triggers are your greatest teachers every single time you feel quote, triggered. And I do know that this word is very heavily

overused. And I'm trying to I was talking to a friend about this with Tony Robbins, and we're like, let's just use the word activated. Because being triggered all the time is not the vibe either. It's more about bringing curiosity. So really interesting, something like we always laugh by brother laughs me like you say all the time, like, interesting. And is that all interesting? I've just noticed this little frequency within me. And honestly, I did it yesterday. Yesterday, I went

to the shops. And I noticed that I got quite triggered being at the shops, and I'm not going to use word triggered, something within me was quite activated. And I sent a message to Paul and I was like, Okay, I've just recognised something in me that is fucking me off. And when I feel that I'm like, Oh, this is a teacher, what is this here to teach me? What it was for me was, and this is going to sound really asshole ish. And I'm going to sound bitchy. But again, I'm just showing you how

I moved through it. I noticed that I was being really internally bitchy, because I saw parents with some kids. And they were, in my opinion, through my lens through my perception of the world. Through my own perspective, I just believed that they were being really poor. There was poor, poor displays of parenting. And it just, it makes me it's one of those things. And this happened

actually at the airport. Just a few months ago, when Paul and I were at the airport, I saw a mom just like yelling and swearing at her kid like swearing at her kid, this kid must have been about eight or 10. And it was the first time in years I felt this like fucking rage within me and I could not help my mom, my face spoke before the rest of me and I must have given her a bit of a look because she called a kid a fucking idiot or fucking something.

I can't really even remember the words, but my face just spoke first. And then she obviously came at me. So that was really interesting, because I've never been one to get into fights. But this was the first time in a very long time. I was like, I will fucking fight because I couldn't. I had flipped the lid. Like mentally I was actually really dysregulated. And I was

like, I'm so mad right now. And again, it actually took me and this was again it this doesn't actually happen to me very often that I need a bit of time to Lahore I need to calm myself down. I need to walk away I need to breathe. I need to fucking figure out what's going on internally because I am really mad. And it doesn't even make sense for me to be this man. This is a stranger. This is a kid I don't know. So these are two examples where I was like, fuck, why do I feel so fucking

activated? Right now I'm really mad. And it's like, okay, cool. This is some information here like this is information and I get to go away and know myself better and understand myself better. Unpack it, like what's going on underneath the trigger? Why am I so mad? Why is this doing something to me. And from that place, you actually get an opportunity to know thyself. And

this is beautiful. Because when you know yourself, and you understand your things that can kind of trigger you, you also have power over it, because you can start to see him interesting. Is this a pattern like is this and for me it is it tends to be a pattern when I see what I believe is poor parenting. And like almost an injustice for these kids not giving them like I just really fucking hate. It feels like abuse to me. And it does seem like a pattern. There's a pattern within me that just gets

really mad. I'm like, Okay, what is this pattern. And also, there is a lot of passion here. So the other thing is where there is rage, there is passion. And you will notice I get pretty angry about a lot of things and that's also beautiful. I'm able to transmute, I'm able to transmute this rage into education. I think that a lot of people just simply don't have the education and the awareness to understand

the damage that they can do. And they weren't given that education because they were probably in the same situation. So understanding the human psyche I'm able to regulate and give compassion pretty quickly after I've noticed it. But my passion I can then turn into right okay, this is my work to do. There's more education to be done people We need to understand communication. People need to understand how to regulate their emotions. So they're not fucking flipping their little, little poor,

innocent kids. Right? So interesting. Here's a trigger that triggers the teacher, then we get to go into curiosity and contemplation. Interesting. I'm feeling this right now, is there a pattern is that it's a particular way someone speaks? Is it a tonality that seems to get you off guard? What's going on underneath it? Maybe. And this is something that I recognised when I was teaching, there were some teachers who just got triggered by particular

kids. And it would be really interesting because other teachers loved that kid. And so it's like this is, this must be a personal thing, this kid is bringing up something that exists within you, that is an opportunity to be healed. So what is it, and this happens, a lot of the time I speak to clients who have maybe two or three kids, and just one kid just rubs them the wrong way. And it's usually that that kid has a mirror for something within themselves that they have

not made peace with. So Riddle me that it's an opportunity for healing. So even knowing that perfect, you've got curiosity. The next thing is, and I'm not going to go right into, like I said, I'm not going right into the understanding your psyche and looking at Where's there an opportunity for healing and how to heal, that's all inside my course. But for now, practical tips just to improve the quality of your relationships in the moment, and give you an opportunity to know yourself

more. So you've got the curiosity, you've got the trigger, you might start to see patterns. And you might be starting to like journal on it, contemplate on it, like, oh, there's a pattern here, when I'm spoken to in this tone, or when it's directed at kids, or when it comes from this particular person, it activates something in me and maybe you'll get to an underlying big root kind of belief here where it makes me feel like I'm stupid. It makes me feel like I'm not good enough. It makes me feel

underappreciated. Then you get to look at how do I usually respond? What is my pattern of response? Sometimes you might be someone who just fucking flips the lid, right? And I want to just point out, and this is really, again, for those of you who are parents, for those who have kids, the term flip your lid is actually it was something that was termed by a child psychiatrist. I think his name

was Dan Siegel. And he termed it flip the lid to actually explain to kids what is happening when you start to feel when they start to feel a lot of emotion. And it's an actual, it's a hand gesture that you can explain to kids, where you literally show them that what has happened is your rational thinking brain has flipped and gone offline, which means your emotional brain is the only thing moving right now.

The emotional brain has taken the seat has taken the reins and the amygdala or the front, the front brain has flipped right open, its flipped to the lid. And now the only thing that can sort of move, the only thing that is influencing us is our emotions, and when our emotions are dysregulated because we're feeling a bit triggered because we're feeling the activated. We can't access logic, we can't access reason we can't access

emotion. And that's why I believe when you feel that you are running from emotion, that's your first step to walk the fuck away. You've ever I don't know if you've ever got like a client email that makes you mad or a kid your kid has said something that makes you mad your partner's done something and the first thing you want to do is fucking rage get catty say something mean, say something nasty, when you notice that that lid has flipped and you are acting from your emotional mind.

If you can, in that moment, have that awareness and just remind yourself, okay, what's happened here? I'm dysregulated. The thinking mind is offline, I can't think straight right now I need to move away, I need to take a breath I need to communicate, I need to say or don't say if it's if it's I have a 24 hour email rule. If I feel a little bit like oh, I can't respond to this right now. 24 hours sleep on it, come back to it right, it can be that easy. You can't always do that with

your kids. You can't take 24 hours away from them. You can't take 24 hours away from your partner. But you can say, hey, I'm actually feeling really emotional right now. And it wouldn't be fair for me to respond. I just need a minute. I just need to go take 1015 I need to go breathe. Because right now this isn't going to be productive or resourceful. And I want to communicate I want to communicate when I can be. And then you go self regulate, you

have to go self regulate. And like I said, How beautiful is this to actually role model if you've got little ones around you? Hey, mums feeling a little bit emotional right now. So I actually just need to go and take some deep breaths and I'm going to come back so that we can have a better conversation. Oh, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. And again, imagine if teachers could say this in the classroom. Hey, guys, I'm feeling very angry right now. And I'm about to get I don't

want to yell at you. So I'm actually going to take a minute and I'm going to ask you guys to breathe with me so that we can move forward and learn properly. Ah, incredible. Imagine if every educator had all of this training. Watch this space guys. Hint Hint, big things happening in the background. But so that's the next thing. Okay, take some time. Communicate. What is going on? And then when you can, then

when you can address it. Now, before you address it, what I actually encourage you to think about is to ask the question, and this is going to actually build feel some for a lot of people, this is a really confronting question. How am I contributing to this? How am I contributing to this dynamic in the relationship that I'm not happy with right now? How is this partly my responsibility? How am I contributing? And how am I bringing a dynamic into this relationship that could be

causing this? Sit with it? Let your emotions do what you need to do regulate ground yourself, get in nature, breathe, listen to music, shake it out, whatever you need to do to regulate, then when you're ready. And often, if you can, you need to say, hey, I want to talk about this. Do Can you let me know when you've got the time to talk about what just

happened? Can you let me know when is a good time for you to address this, or, Hey, I want to address something that you said before I want to address an energy that I'm feeling when you tell me when is a good time, I'm good when you are right. So it can actually just be that

regulated that calm. And then you've got two parties that are ready and regulated to have a conversation from that grounded energy and space, without the emotional brain ruling everything and making it really unproductive, then it's about the language you use to have the conversation. So when you start to speak with blame, and you're pointing fingers, that is never going to be the right place to start, there's a really great quote, and I can't actually

remember who said it. But when you point a finger, there's three pointing back at you. When you point a finger, there's three pointing back at you. Because when you point, it's actually an invitation to look inwards. When you're blaming and making others wrong. There's something internally that needs to be looked at as well. So when you start a conversation with you always or when you do this, it's going to instantly activate a defence mechanism in that

other person. And that's not going to create the right energy for a great conversation. So instead, lead with I feel, when this happens, it makes me feel because the thing is, nobody can argue with how you feel. And if they do, there's a lot of stuff that needs to that for them, then do that they need to probably come listen to this. But when somebody argues with how you feel, there's a very low emotional intelligence there. Because you simply cannot argue with with how someone feels. So

this is how I'm feeling. I'm not blaming, I'm just telling you that this is how it makes me feel. It might not be your intention, but it makes me feel this way. And maybe it's a me thing, and I'm working on it. But I need you to understand that this is how it makes me feel. Then we have understanding, and then we have compassion. And then we get to start to talk from a place of okay, I'm understanding now,

this cannot happen. And I'm going to be very clear about this, this cannot happen and you cannot transcend these dynamics, these funky dynamics and get to a better place. If there are two egos at play. And when you are communicating from ego, you are not communicating to understand you are communicating to be right. When you are communicating from ego, you are not communicating to understand you are under you are

communicating to be right. So when someone just wants to be right, don't even entertain the conversation. When you can feel that you are just trying to prove yourself right that you were just trying to be right. Drop your ego, get into your heart, and listen to understand. Listen to understand. And again, this is why I believe when you understand human psyche, when you understand the way people respond to things when you understand people's own maps of

the world. When you understand human behaviour, you naturally don't get triggered so much, because you're able to see why people are acting a certain way. And therefore you instantly have compassion. So like I said, recently, I got a little bit like mad at what I said was like, in my opinion, poor displays of parenting. And it's always been a pattern for me. I'm just like, oh man, why does this trigger me so much? It

makes me so bad. And of course when you look a bit deeper, it's like well right now that feels like an injustice and it feels unfair. I'm struggling a little bit in that department to come to terms with a little bit of you know, fertility obstacles.

So when I say it just feels like an extra kick in the guts and that's fucking beautiful because it shows me what what's really on my heart and the kind of human I want to be in the kind of parent I want to be and I understand these parents they weren't given the tools, they probably were parented the same way and that they're literally just moving through the world with the tools and resources they have, and they're doing the

best they can. So it does help to understand the human psyche so that you can always come from a place of understanding and compassion. Does it mean you're not going to get a bit triggered? No, does it mean you're not going to go through periods of massive growth where all of a sudden you feel space between yourself and the people around, you know, that's still

going to happen. But when you understand human psyche, when they understand human behaviour, and when you've got a massive toolkit of incredible communication skills, which can be like it's a skill it can be taught, it can be practised.

What you will see happen is your relationships improve, your business improves, if you have a business, if you are at work, your relationships with your colleagues or your students or your clients, they, they just improve tenfold, because you've got a skill set, which means you're able to find common ground between people and use that to communicate, to understand to resolve and to

expand dynamics. So that's my rant today on all things communication, relationships, emotional regulation, emotional intelligence, I think it's the most important skill set, to have and to own because relationships and the quality of our relationships are one of the main factors that contribute to

a happy life. This has been shown in one of the most, the longest ever, longitudinal study on human happiness and quality of life, which was done by I think, Harvard, it was so incredible to see that the one thing that contributed to a happy life over the longest amount of time was the quality of relationships. And I don't believe you can have quality relationships, when you have low emotional intelligence and

resilience. And when you've got a toolkit that's a little bit empty as far as communication skills. So like I said, all of this is actually taught in my course, True Confidence, which is just one of my favourite courses to teach ever. And that's probably going to open in the next month. Yeah, it's going to open in the next month. So keep your eyes on that if it's something that interests you. If not, I hope those little little

tips and tricks help. I would love to know what landed please give me your biggest takeaway like please, I love to hear what your biggest aha moment is. So put your aha moment in a quote box, share it on your socials and tag me or drop into my DMs to tell me what you took away from this. I'd love to know if it's improved. Use it for the next week. Notice it. Like I said, use your triggers as your teachers to know thyself to know

yourself. Because when you know yourself, you're able to actually be the person who changes all the dynamics in your relationships and honestly creates just the most beautiful, beautiful, beautiful scenarios in your life. So I'd love to hear how this went. Thanks for tuning in. And I will see you next week. Bye.