De-Stress For Success with Isabella Ferguson
This podcast is about finding calm. I talk to the experts and bring you evidence-based practical methods to help you destress and live purposefully. In my early 40’s, I bowed out of a 20 year legal career “to spend more time with the kids”. However it was more than that. Decades of running on high anxiety and drinking to cope had had its toll on my nervous system and I was burnt out. I didn’t know it at the time, but from there I started years of recovery and ultimately stepped into a new way of living. I went to rehab, retrained as a counsellor and coach, created a successful counselling practice, became a motivational & corporate wellness speaker, took up painting and now support others to destress for success.
https://isabellaferguson.com.au
De-Stress For Success with Isabella Ferguson
Being Magnificent in Mid-Life With Emma Gilmour
The founder of Hope Rising Coaching, Emma Gilmour, joins me to chat about how to tap into our magnificence in mid-life. Emma talks about her personal evolution from a lifestyle fuelled by adrenaline to one that celebrates serenity and self-care, especially as we traverse the complexities of midlife. We traverse how to foster and protect resilience and how to tap into fun with gentler practices like Koya, a therapeutic dance form that allows for emotional connection and release. Society's loud message of perfectionism often drowns out our inner peace, but Emma’s story is a vivid reminder of the beauty in silencing that noise by celebrating who we are and can be.
The allure of a glass of wine after a long day can sometimes mask the silent struggle with alcohol many women face. Emma's own journey towards sobriety sheds light on the peaceful contentment that lies beyond the bottle, illuminating the everyday joys that sobriety brings into sharp focus. Her experiences celebrate the liberation found in guilt-free relaxation that doesn’t hinge on negative coping mechanisms like alcohol. For anyone curious about the profound lifestyle shift that saying goodbye to alcohol can bring, Emma offers an inspiring perspective on the myriad of benefits that come with choosing to live life fully present and unfiltered by intoxication.
EMMA GILMOUR
https:https://www.hoperisingcoaching.com
Insta: @hoperisingcoaching
Virtual Retreat - 5 Days To Freedom - 19th-23rd Feb 2024 - https://www.hoperisingcoaching.com/5dayvrfeb2024
FREE Masterclass - '5 Surprising Ways Taking A Break From Alcohol Can Be Effortless & Change your Life' - 28th Feb 2024 - https://www.hoperisingcoaching.com/feb24masterclassreg
30 Day - Great Aussie Alcohol Experiment - LIVE! 4th March - 2nd April 2024 - https://www.hoperisingcoaching.com/the_great_aussie_alcohol_experiment
ISABELLA FERGUSON
Free resource : "AM I DRINKING TOO MUCH?" FREE 5-DAY VIDEO SERIES
My web: https://isabellaferguson.com.au
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FOLLOW ME
instagram: @alcoholandstresswithisabella
linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/isabella-ferguson-52022b242
Today on the podcast we have Emma Gilmour. Emma is the founder of Hope is Rising Coaching, where Emma provides counselling and coaching services to women seeking to break up with booze. Emma is also the host of the fabulous Midlife AF podcast. We are both this Naked Mind Certified Coaches, amongst other things, which is how we met. Welcome on the show, Emma.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for having me, Bella. It's so beautiful to be here. I'm looking forward to this episode.
Speaker 1:So today we're going to talk about the stresses and pressures that women in midlife face, where it all just seems to bold neck until we are about to explode. But first of all, Emma, can I just ask the question that I ask everybody that pops on how do you personally know when you are stressed, what are your signs and what's your go-to ways of de-stressing? Yeah, it's really interesting.
Speaker 2:Because they've actually changed over the years. And I think for me, when I know, when I'm stressed, because I get into a particular type of mode which is my sort of it's a scarcity mode, it's a push, push, push, push, push, push it's almost like I get taken over by a part of me who is, you know, we've got to work really hard and we've got to keep pushing. And then there's another part of me that is going. I am so tired and it kind of oscillates, and I oscillate between the push, push, push and I'm physically completely exhausted. When I allow myself a moment, yeah, and I'm not going to be able to do that and on top of that, what I really notice is I stop doing myself care.
Speaker 2:All the things that I tell my clients, you know, these are the things that are really important for us to regulate our nervous system. I become like a student cramming for exams and I don't eat properly, I don't go for a swim or I don't do my breath work or all the things that you know keep me happy and joyful and in flow. They all go and I also find that I'm a lot more reactive.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's my thing. I get triggered a lot more.
Speaker 1:So all the bits that keep it will keep you on the road, all those bits of self-care, they're the first things that get eliminated, aren't they? I don't know yeah 100%. When you are on the road and you're feeling like there is a semblance of balance, what are the things that are your sort of go-to things that keep you fighting? Fit to get up and fight the world. I love that. Yeah, is this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we just like pretending we're boxing. It's really interesting because as I've got into mid-life, everything's really changed for me in so many ways, like before. So before I turned 45, 46, it was all about adrenaline. So I used to run, I used to do hip workouts at 5.30 in the morning, it was all very push, push, push, push, push and I used to get a lock on that hot yoga and those were the sort of things I did.
Speaker 2:But when I came to midlife I noticed as well that I need so much more rest when I'm tired than I ever did. I think I'd been running on adrenaline and cortisol for so long that my body is still in recovery from however many years of being super Like you get it, but being in corporate and just really really pushing myself really hard. And I think now my things are more around going through a walk, getting some sunshine, going through a swim. But even recently, because I have been quite burnt out, I've not been having my swims, which my swims aren't like an athletic swim, they're like a breaststroke at a chat in the sea, but they're in the ocean, aren't they?
Speaker 1:Because I've seen your photos on Instagram and it's sunrise and you're out there and I love that too. I only do it like twice a year, but when I do, oh my gosh, it sustains me for weeks, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Isn't it? It's so there's something about the sea, isn't it Something about the sea? But you just surrender to the expansive amazingness of it and it just replenishes you, yeah, yeah. So those are the sort of things more slow, more movement. I love a bit of Koya dancing. I love ecstatic dance as well.
Speaker 1:That I love too so is that. Can you tell me just a little bit about what that dance is?
Speaker 2:Yes. So there's two different things. So Koya dance is like more of a mixture between yoga and dance, but it's a bit more therapeutic and that's so you kind of almost dance with the parts of you that you are struggling with and also the parts of you. So it's kind of like a bit more processing. It's more kind of a more structured processing. And then ecstatic dance is really electronic dance.
Speaker 2:Music creatives, I know, in a it's almost like a rave, but the one that I go to and I've actually booked one, this I'm so looking forward to this. I booked one in September with a lady called Rivka who set up I think it's called the five, five senses, which is an ecstatic dance movement and she's having a. I think there's 20 women going to the Northern Territories to dance and just be in nature and just because the way that it works it's really interesting. There's no alcohol, no drugs, no talking, no touching, really, unless you can touch. So it's a completely different thing. So you go in and they take you on a journey with the music. And what I've found for me is because I struggle with processing my emotions and I struggled to feel them in my body, which is quite common for women, because we suppress.
Speaker 1:We suppress you know all of the diet, culture and everything.
Speaker 2:We find it quite difficult sometimes to get in touch with ourselves and what we're actually feeling. So a lot of us spend our times that are quite disassociated from our body. But what I found the more I've been doing the ecstatic dance because it takes you on this journey. You start off really slow. It's really sort of like nobody. There's no shaming, there's like people doing whatever they want with their bodies and their moves and you start off and it's a bit weird. But by the end of the evening you've gone on this journey with all these people you've never talked to. You're in barefoot, there's no drugs or alcohol and the DJ is taking you up from, like you know, lying down to a big stomping like whoa and then back to kind of like peaceful floating.
Speaker 1:I love it. It just it sounds fun, and for someone like me, who you know bit uptight, it's probably. It's probably. Yeah, nick, don't just probably what I need. Might have to turn the lights out first and then see how I go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it's fun and I found such a good way of processing stuff, like if you've had about day or if you've, you know, if you've just got some stuff on your mind. If you bring it with you and you dance with it, it gets through you, it gets out of your system. You know, you process it, you integrate it.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's a good, solid, healthy way of processing, integrating and relaxing. I, like you know so good. Now, emma, you would see, more often than not, with a lot of your clients, those that are wanting to break up with alcohol, women in midlife that are probably just hit the limit and are needing help and I know that you know booze is a coping mechanism. What are you seeing? Women that are sort of hitting that age, and why are we just so stressed? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's really interesting.
Speaker 2:I would say that generally, there's a theme to why we're so stressed, and the majority of it is around how we think that things should be and trying to be all of those things and, for many precious human souls, the self judgment and the internal dialogue around all of the things that we need to do being, you know, almost like every day we're scored on a scorecard out of 10.
Speaker 2:And if we haven't eaten properly, fed our kids properly, got them to all the activities, got them to all the things, excelled at work, managed everybody's schedules done the washing, cleaned the house, organized, everything, somehow or other we're failing, and yet it's a completely impossible. The goals are completely out of control, and the really sad, the saddest and most awful thing about it is that the human beings that I work with they think it's their fault, they think there's something wrong with them, and that's the same with alcohol. It's like and now, not only can I not do all the things without alcohol, but now I'm drinking alcohol and that's my fault as well, and so it's this continue. We take responsibility for everything and we make ourselves bad, and then we feel such shame about it and none of it's true?
Speaker 1:No, because we're the ones that are, we're scoring. We're the ones scoring our own scorecards.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's exactly right, no one else is scoring we created the scorecards.
Speaker 1:Why do we do it? What is it within our cultural makeup that we are so hard on ourselves?
Speaker 2:for what do you think? For me, it comes from wanting to fit in, wanting to belong and feeling like we're in our core, feeling like we're not whole, yeah, feeling like we're not enough, we're not good enough, and so we think if we do all of the things and if we keep trying really hard, then eventually we'll be good enough, it'll be okay. We won't feel like that and it's again. It's not true, because we are, in and of ourselves, beautiful, amazing human beings who are 100% just for being. Yeah, but that doesn't change the fact that that's how we feel, right.
Speaker 1:It's that pursuit of perfectionism that is completely exhausting, isn't it? And we do. We go hard at work, we go hard with raising kids and being the perfect mum, and then there's a perfect wife and the perfect hostess.
Speaker 2:And then add food and drink and exercise into the situation and I'm like God.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, it's actually. You know how you notice themes that come up in your coaching practice. The theme of mine at the moment is very similar to what we're talking about, which is we've almost lost touch with how to switch off, and the only way that we feel is a guilt free way, except the guilt comes in.
Speaker 1:the next way is to well, I'm going to have a glass of wine and just remove myself for 20 minutes and that's kind of my signal to me in the world to leave me alone for a bit and then that kind of then snowballs into other bad coping habits, but we sort of can't seem to find the way of saying I need permission just to take an hour out and completely unwind. So yeah, what do you think is kind of the practical ways that we need to shift the way we think? How do we as women kind of get out of that mindset of perfectionism and pushing ourselves so hard and stop needing to try and fit in and do it all?
Speaker 2:I guess it's so hard, isn't it? Because I know for myself I had to let the cleaning go. I couldn't keep on top of my house. It wasn't possible and it was killing me to try and do it and work and everything else, and I had. If I knew enough, someone came around to our house and said, all your house is quite confronting. And I was like, oh my God. So it's also having to let go of other people's judgment and having to which is really really hard to let go of wanting other people to think well of you and not to judge you, so almost having it's really that coming back to ourselves, isn't it?
Speaker 1:And just going.
Speaker 2:I can only really take care of me, in my opinion of myself, and it's easier said than done, because of course we want to. You know, we don't want people to be saying, oh, you went round Denver's house, it was confronting.
Speaker 1:I mean, what a statement If you're thinking of, if you're thinking of saying that to somebody else about this day at the house. Maybe don't.
Speaker 2:But it was a guy to a guy, which is so funny. That's how they kind of talk to each other and I would say, oh guys, no offence, but I would say my husband would agree with me on this. It's like boys are a little bit mean to each other. They come up and they say like kind of some quite mean things to each other sometimes and that's their sort of banter and it's acceptable, whereas things that we would never say to each other because we'd be like more to fight.
Speaker 1:Absolutely true, emma, and I know that, things that you know. If somebody, if my husband, heard another book called his house, he wouldn't think anything of it, whereas I'd be ruminating. So we have to let go of judgment.
Speaker 2:I find as well. A lot of it it's about, you know, particularly with our kids, and a lot of us get very stressed and very triggered when our kids won't do what we want them to do or our kids aren't doing the things they're supposed to do. And that, again, is about what will people think about. So it's all about what will other people think about us. So the hardest thing and, I think, my biggest lesson in life that I'm still learning as because I'm still learning all of this stuff is that having to let go a little bit of what other people think of me and letting it be okay for them to be wrong about me and to think that I am a different person than perhaps I might wish that they thought I was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, beautifully said, emma, I think, and I love I'm going to get. I got this from your website, which I absolutely love. Do you mind if I just read it out, because it's so good? Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1:The pressure on women in midlife is insane. We grew up with Madonna and our Walkmans working out the cinema and we can have it all expectations. It's been the last four, 20 years and we have been all the things the mum, the wife, the career woman running full throttle on caffeine, booze, in adrenaline for so long. We are literally women on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Yes, it is exactly. I wanted to sort of high five because it's exactly how we were brought up. We can have it all. Wow, nobody actually said, well, it's impossible, because that was me, that was me for sure, with my kids, and then the legal career, and the only way I was sort of holding it together with masking tape was, you know, to have a lovely, or what I thought was lovely, glass or two of red wine in the evening. Yeah, and it all unraveled, wow, yeah. So a large part of it must also be changing the way we culturally tell women, when they're young, teenage girls as well, about what their expectations are when they're growing up.
Speaker 1:When your women are coming to you, they're obviously at maximum capacity. What are your practical tips that you give to them around stress and unwinding yeah, and we've heard the reframe, you know and stopping the judgement and sort of self-judgment. Yeah, what else do you say to?
Speaker 2:them. I think probably the main thing is recognising when they're being triggered and what's going on for them when they're being triggered and how they feel it in their body. And if they can't feel it in the body, that's okay, that they can learn. But we do need to learn because for me, it's we drink to suppress and the opposite of that is that we feel what we're actually feeling, and learning how to do that is a learnt, is a learnable and a learnt behaviour, because we don't get taught it right. No, we don't get taught.
Speaker 2:We get taught to push everything down and pretend everything's fine, yep and suck it up yeah. Yeah, suck it up. Get what you get, don't get upset.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's exactly exactly what we were taught.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's that really. It's like if you're being triggered, if you feel like you need to have a drink because you want to escape from yourself. It's like what would happen if you were able to, instead of trying to save yourself with alcohol from experiencing the discomfort, sit with the discomfort and learn to understand where it sources, and then that might mean that you have to put your big girl pants on and have a difficult conversation with somebody about, because a lot of the time it comes from resentment and a lot of the time it's because we're pushing down, isn't it? Our real life experiences, and so sometimes we then have to have the difficult, awkward conversation that none of us like having with the other human beings in our world and say you know, this isn't working for me the way that it is right now, and in order for me to be able to not sell palm with alcohol, I'm going to need to have a change here. How do we do it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and that can be a really hard conversation in expressing what you actually need to somebody else in your household, because you're the one that's been there helping everybody else with their needs. It's quite. Yeah, we're not really taught that language, no.
Speaker 2:And it doesn't always land very well because often there's been a lot to gain, a lot of pushback, not having had that conversation yes, oh God.
Speaker 1:I think another thing that I've really noticed is that, I mean, it's a double-edged sword when you hit midlife and you're in the melting pot and you're feeling it all, and then then you sort of pop your head up and you think, well, something has to give. How do I want to live the next 20 years of my life? What do I value? More Feeding, more and more work, doing more housework, fitting you know? Or do I actually value a bit of calm and time to unwind and to heal? So it's shifting what you value and sort of, I guess, reformulating what you view as a successful life. But I don't know we were just talking before we hit record, emma that you don't suddenly reach it and then it's all lovely and un-stressful forever. You have moments, don't you? Because I know that I'm often a big ball of stress. How are you? How?
Speaker 2:about you, emma, absolutely. And I was just saying to Bella before we came on. I was saying it's funny because I've been really busy in my business the last few months and I'd let myself care be. It's kind of dropped off starting to pick them up again now. But I was saying to my husband you know, I'm feeling like this. And he said and because of course I work for myself. And he's like oh, you're boss, she must be a real bitch.
Speaker 1:And it's the best quote ever.
Speaker 2:Yes, Isn't it? We often a lot of the stuff we're creating for ourselves, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yep A lot of the stuff is we are creating our own stressful prison.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can support that 100% because I like to you know, I set out in the last few months after I moved to Adelaide, to have a few days off per week. Do you think I've ever let that happen? No, because it's always that go, it's that go, go, go. Yeah. But what I also love about you know, this podcast, this conversation, Emma, is that there are. You know, there's more than just breathwork or walks in nature. There's just things like the fabulous dance that you were talking about, and ocean swimming.
Speaker 1:There are fun things you can incorporate in your life and Emma. So if you're a woman, you're midlife and you're drinking too much to cope with stress and they want to get in contact with you. Emma, where can they find you?
Speaker 2:So my website is hope rising coaching, or one word, and then my podcast is midlife and where I do just talk mainly about midlife stuff and things that are interesting to me and the people that I work with, and then my Instagram and Facebook handle is at Hope Rising Coaching, or one word, as well.
Speaker 1:Thank you, emma. And what would you say to somebody that is thinking about giving up alcohol? How does it feel on the other side? And when you have actually given up and you are in a cold, free person, what? What is? What gains can be felt?
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness, it's like the never ending list, isn't it? I think, probably more than anything else, is that joy in life for its own sake? Again, you know, and I'm not talking joy like happy, happy joy, joy, hallelujah, but I mean like contentment and seeing, because I, for me, when I was drinking, everything revolved around alcohol and I, you know, I went to all these things that actually, in reality, I hated. I didn't realize I hated them, but I had to use alcohol to go to them and I made it such an important part of everything that, you know, doing anything without alcohol was really boring for me. It's like just being able to do regular stuff. Who knew? It's like being really nice. Yeah, who knew? You know, you can go roller skating and it doesn't have to be a bar, but that would not have been an option really, you know. And I don't have to try and have hound people before school meetups to go to the pub and things like that. It's, I can just be a regular, I can just turn up and sit in the chair.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's stuff like that. I think it's that. So, if it's really, you know, I think there's so much more to it and I think you and I both know this, that you know it's the appeal, that little tiny layer of and it changes everything, yes, and there's nothing that it changes for the world.
Speaker 1:That's spot on. Yeah, yeah, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, emma Gilmour. Thank you so much, thank you so much as well.
Speaker 2:I really appreciate it, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:You're welcome.
