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
How to Be a Badass and Live Bravely With Nikki Langman!
*Please note this episode includes references to addiction and touches on an eating disorder and non-suicidal self injury
Nikki Langman is brilliant. She is a badass. In fact, she is the author of How to be a BADASS: Navigating Your Road to Self-Mastery. Learn how to embrace your inner badass. Nikki Langman, an international speaker, author, and thought leader on emotional intelligence, opens up about her remarkable journey of conquering addiction and trauma.
Nikki shares her powerful BADASS framework—Brave, Authentic, Direction, Action, Self-love, and Self-talk—that emerged from her personal trials and triumphs. Discover how Nikki navigated her battle with alcohol and meth addiction, the life-altering moment that led her to the ER in 2017, and the compassionate approach that fueled her recovery.
Tune in to hear Nikki's candid revelations about managing stress and ADHD through physical activity, and how running meditation and athletic pursuits became her refuge. Explore the importance of aligning actions with values, maintaining self-awareness, and recognising triggers to stay resilient and healthy.
Nikki’s story is not just about survival; it's about empowering others to break through limiting beliefs and find authentic purpose. Whether you're searching for fulfillment or seeking practical strategies for personal growth, Nikki’s insights and the BADASS framework offer an inspiring blueprint for mastering your own life. Boom!
LEARN MORE ABOUT NIKKI
Nikki’s website - www.nikkilangman.com
Purchase your Badass book using this link: PURCHASE HERE
*Use your special discount code: DE-STRESS25
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/nikkilangman1
ISABELLA FERGUSON
Free resource : "AM I DRINKING TOO MUCH?" FREE 5-DAY VIDEO SERIES
My web: https://isabellaferguson.com.au
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linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/isabella-ferguson-52022b242
Today I get to talk to the amazing Nikki Langman. Nikki Langman is a badass. In fact, she's written a book how to Be a Badass Navigating your Road to Self-Mastery. Now, before I start this episode, I just want to mention that we touch on addiction and really briefly talk about an eating disorder and non-suicidal self-injury. Now, if any of these topics are triggering to you, perhaps consider not listening on. However, if you are going to listen on, look. This conversation is incredibly inspiring and motivating. There's nothing that Nikki is afraid to talk about. She really discusses, I guess, what could be defined as her first half of her life, which was bloody hard, bloody hard, bloody hard, bloody hard. She talks about trauma and what led to an alcohol and meth addiction and other disorders. But gosh, she pulled through and she developed her bad ass framework and we can all learn from this framework. You don't have to have lived experience. You could be looking for purpose, fulfillment, courage, bravery, direction all the things You're just going to learn so much from this chat. Cannot wait to get started, so I'm glad you're here.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the De-Stress for Success podcast. Did you know that we inherit our stress response from our parents or carers or generations before? But we can also train our brain to respond to stress differently. It's all about brain health. I'm Isabella Ferguson and I'm here to deliver to you the most up-to-date, evidence-based methodologies on how to find some calm.
Speaker 1:In my early 40s, I bowed out of a 20-year legal career. Decades of running on high anxiety and drinking alcohol to cope had taken its toll on my nervous system and I was burnt out. Now, as a 48-year-old corporate speaker, counsellor, coach, I'll interview the experts, ask the questions you wish you had the time to ask and I'll deliver some practical tips to you. I'm glad you tuned in. Now let's de-stress. Today I am welcoming Nikki Langman, international speaker, author, thought leader on emotional intelligence. I just love that description thought leader, endurance runner, no less, and the author of a book that we are about to talk about how to Be a Badass Navigating your Road to Self-Mastery as a rebel at heart. Nikki, that title just draws me in a huge welcome to you, thank you so much for having me here today.
Speaker 1:Now, Nikki, I always start with these two questions how do you know when you're feeling stressed? What are your go-to ways of just seeking to regulate and to de-stress?
Speaker 2:My sleep gets very disturbed. My attitude changes. I often don't eat. I'll just forget to eat or to practice some kind of self-care I'll just forget to eat or to practice some kind of self-care. You know, not noticing, not doing body scans, not recognizing the tension or reaching for the pan at all, instead of trying to understand why the headache is happening, which is usually because my shoulders are up around my ears and you know, but I've kind of I've always struggled with anxiety, you know, but I've kind of I've always struggled with anxiety. So, learning how to de-stress and how to practice self-care and self-love has been a lifelong journey, really, and, I think, one that I'll be practicing and learning for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2:When I so, alcohol was my coping mechanism for stress many, many years. I hear you yeah, I think a few people are going uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I relate. But when I got sober in 2017, I realized that I was an emotional intelligence professional. So I was going into corporations and talking to people executives, leaders about how to manage their stress and corporate well being and things. But then I was going home and I was yelling at my child, yelling at my husband, slamming doors. I couldn't control the anger because I had lost the outlet, the only real outlet that I knew. And that's where my kind of my athletic career if you could call it that in brackets began, because I needed something being so high energy, adhd and in recovery I needed to manage all that excess stress, and so I get that's. That's a story in itself. That could be a totally different podcast yes, oh, we should.
Speaker 1:How I got into indoors at 40?
Speaker 2:but, um, what I love about that is I get to talk to women who, um, who have limiting beliefs and who are, you know, let's say, between 35 to 50 and say I'm too old to take up any sports I'm like. Well, I took up karate and endurance running at 40. So, you know, let's talk about limiting beliefs. Those are the conversations I like to have. Now I find that if I don't have that exercise, it's become such a part of who I am, and that could be yoga, it could be a form of meditation and I say a form of, because it could be quiet meditation or running meditation, which is going into myself and being present with myself, in whatever form that takes. Those are the things that if I don't have those in my daily routine, I will feel the stress, yeah, and I'm not a very nice person.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I'm told yeah, yeah, I don't believe that for a second Running meditation I'm really just curious about just briefly because my earphones are broken. I normally have this sort of anxiety if I can't head out for a run without my headphones and a podcast, but I've had to recently and I think I've come back and felt a whole lot more at peace and like it was a whole lot more enjoyable. What's running meditation to you?
Speaker 2:Well, like I said a minute ago, I have ADHD, so I've always found the idea of sitting quietly and still to be extremely difficult, to the point where I just almost gave up. You know, thinking this is just not for me. I read a wonderful book. For those that are curious about meditation is 10% Happier? Yeah, yeah, goody. Oh, what's his name? He was an anchorman in the US.
Speaker 1:I'll put that in the show notes.
Speaker 2:Put it in the show notes. It's a book. It's a book about meditation for skeptics and I was definitely a skeptic because I thought I just cannot sit and the idea of sitting on a pillow for half an hour no, not going to do it. So I found that I could use the energy. But, like you said, you know, when you don't have the distraction of the headphones or the podcast and you just go inside yourself and you can hear your breath and you can hear your footsteps, to me that is just as much meditation as it is sitting and being quiet for half an hour or 30 seconds or whatever you can do because you're present. And to me that's what mindfulness and meditation is is presence and it's certainly restorative.
Speaker 1:You've had your moment to restore, nikki. You just have fit in so much into your life before the age of 30, into your life before the age of 30, starting at seven years old with alcohol, moving into meth addiction, non-suicidal self-injury or cutting eating disorders. Look, when I read your beautiful story, I just wanted to reach out and hug that younger version of you story. I just wanted to reach out and hug that younger version of you. Looking back now, how do you feel about that young child, teen and woman?
Speaker 2:For a long time I didn't allow myself to identify with trauma, and it was actually through some of Gabor Mate's writings and Johan Hari that really brought me to realize that trauma can be defined in many different ways, and it took many years and a lot of money and therapy to be able to describe my childhood in one word lonely.
Speaker 2:And that is a form of trauma, because it's that. You know the loneliness as a child, the feeling of nobody really cares, they're too preoccupied with themselves. And so it led me to, you know, seek people who accepted me, and those people weren't necessarily the best people to associate with, but I was so lonely, and social anxiety as well, and just didn't, you know, very intellectual but didn't really have the social skills, and so I think I perpetuated my own loneliness. So I think I perpetuated my own loneliness, but it wasn't until I was probably in my mid-30s to late-30s that I started learning about the different kinds of trauma and that it's not always what we think it is, just like addiction isn't always what we think it is. You know, we imagine, if you're not familiar with addiction, you have a preconceived idea, a stigmatized idea of what it is and what it looks like and the. You know the person on the street, the homeless guy with a paper bag, but you know what? It's your doctor, it's your teacher, it's your sister, it's your husband.
Speaker 1:It's your teacher, it's your sister, it's your husband, it's your child, because it can affect anyone, and so can trauma, yeah, yeah, and when you sort of learned about it, and you learned about trauma and loneliness, um and it's interesting, you touched on Johan Hari, which, of course, he did that beautiful, amazing TED Talk about how connection quality, connection, not quantity is almost the opposite to addiction. What learnings did you take from all of that, as you, you know, reflected back on everything that you went through, you know, reflected back on the everything that you went through.
Speaker 2:It was so eye-opening because I self-stigmatized for so long. You know, like many people who are in active addiction or have had lived experience, self-forgiveness is extremely difficult, and so I think we stay in a state of unwellness and because we don't, we have these limiting beliefs that we've done so much wrong in our lives that we don't deserve happiness, we don't deserve love, we don't deserve connection, we don't deserve friends. And Johan Hari, that TED Talk, everything we think we know about addiction is wrong. Oh my god.
Speaker 1:Very eye-opening yeah, I got goosebumps when I when I listened to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and if you want to go farther, the book um is also excellent. Um, but gabor mate as well. Um, a great one to put in the show notes is the Realm of Hungry.
Speaker 1:Ghosts yes, got it over here in my bookshelf.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And another one of my favourites too, that has really opened my eyes, is the Body Keeps the Score.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yep, got those too.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, we should share both films.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 1:I know Well this book here, which I have just tagged, is also now going to be placed firmly in my bookshelf because it is just, it's motivational, it's inspiring, it gets into some of those juicy subjects that I love, which we will talk about in a second. But if you don't mind me just reading just a quote here, which I think was the turning point. The turning point and you know I got a bit teary because you know it was reflective of things that I had been through as well with my husband. I heard the front door open and my spine stiffened as my husband's footsteps came closer to the bedroom door. He paused in the doorway for a while. I didn't look at him. I couldn't stand to see the look of distress on his face. There was nothing I could say.
Speaker 1:Eventually he came over to the bed, sat down next to me. I tried to hide my quivering hands, but I couldn't. He felt the heat and the perspiration radiating off my body as I fixed my eyes to the wall and focused on trying to regulate my breathing. He sighed softly. I didn't realize it had gotten this bad. I nodded One of these days I'm going to come home and find you dead, but I'll know you didn't mean to do it, you just got it wrong. Oh, how did those words land? Did they propel you forward?
Speaker 2:Well, I know you're not going to read the next sentence, but that's how they landed. Yes, you'll have to get the book to read the next sentence.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, that's it, that's right, it pretty much sums it up, but that was a turning point and I it was almost like I describe it as like the sliding glass door opened and this just gust of cold air came in and every hair on my body, just you know. And I was sitting there staring at a wall like almost catatonic, and all of a sudden, I was filled with this just intense energy of oh my god, and because my first thought was well, thank god, I wouldn't want anyone to think that I was suicidal. Yeah, and you know, I, luckily I've never been suicidal, but you know, accidental overdose leaves a lot of questions. And he was basically saying you know you're going to die, but I'll know that it was accidental. Yeah, and my first thought was relief, and then my second thought was no, in so many words, no, no, no, no, no. This is not how my story ends, ends. And so he took me to the ER that night. I went immediately into treatment and that was in 2017. And a lot has. Life is just so different now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had a similar, similar trip up to the ER, driven by my husband as well. Trip up to the ER driven by my husband as well. There's something about that, the compassion that he showed and the gentleness there was no anger, there was no hostility or judgment and that can just be so motivating in itself, can't it? Nikki? I BADASS framework. I know and have read that you wrote this framework really to navigate through your own challenges. It's an acronym. What does it stand for?
Speaker 2:Well, I'll give you a little context as to how it became an acronym. As a professional speaker, I was using bits of my story on stage and BADASS to me has always been a very motivating and empowering word. I love it. Yeah. Yeah, when you're a badass, you know you're a badass.
Speaker 2:But I found that I was speaking to lots of different audiences and lots of different demographics and the message of using it just as an adjective or an empowering word wasn't landing with everyone. Some people loved it, but a lot of people didn't like it at all and some people found it downright offensive. And what I really wanted to do was not write a book about addiction. I wanted to write a book about overcoming adversity, because everyone has gone through adversity and we don't know what it's going to look like or how long it's going to last. So I wanted to tell my story and say, look, this is my adversity and this is a lifelong thing that I'm going to live with for the rest of my life. But I didn't want people to not read it because they thought it was a bad word or that it was about addiction only. So I thought, well, how can I make this about empowering people to overcome their own limitations, their own limiting beliefs, their own traumas and be a badass every day. So it was just divine intervention that the letters just kind of fell into the right order to actually say what I wanted to say.
Speaker 2:I think it was really a God thing were brave, authentic direction, as in like direction and purpose, action, self-love and self-talk yeah, that's the acronym. And you know, I've always said that I can't be my best self every day and I hate that phrase. You know, be your best self. Let's just strive to be our best self. Show up, to work as your best self. Well, I'm sorry, but guess what? If you're human, you're not your best self every day, but you can be a badass every day because you can show up with bravery, and sometimes bravery means just getting out of bed and having a shower. You can be authentic with everyone you meet. We don't have to wear masks.
Speaker 2:A lot of people struggle with purpose and direction. They feel like they should know, but as I talk about it, it's fluid. If you don't know what your direction or your purpose is, don't worry about it, because it's going to change. But keep your eye on that North Star. And if you don't take action, take action. Well, none of what I just said is actually going to do anything um. And then, of course, we know the importance um of self-love and positive self-talk. So it's just like I said, it was just kind of divine intervention that I was able to put it into a framework and an acronym that said exactly what I wanted to say without it being misinterpreted.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just interesting that you touched on authenticity and direction, finding your North Star. I naturally always gravitate towards research and books that are going to provide a bit of guidance there, because it's always something that my clients want to know about who am I? And it's self-worth. I need fulfillment and purpose, and it's often what's when you're poking your head up at that sort of 40, 50-year-old stage. Your kids are older or you're sort of leaning through menopause, past and into that second stage. It's something shifted and you want more. I just love the way that you're guiding people through working out what your values are. Working on your dark side, your shadow Wow, I mean, that's powerful stuff.
Speaker 2:That's powerful stuff If you really want to confront yourself and get to know yourself on the most, the deepest, deepest, darkest, most medieval level. Do shadow work?
Speaker 1:would you mind, uh, telling us a bit more about how what shadow work is?
Speaker 2:yeah, um, so it's a young um. It's kind of, if you think of the yin and the yang. So the yin is our light side. It's it's the side of ourselves that we project to the world. It's the side of ourselves that we project to the world because it's the side of ourselves that we like. So the things that we like about ourselves. So I'm funny, I'm personable, I can be charismatic, so I'm going to showcase those things because I'm going to think to myself if that's all you know about me, then you're going to like me.
Speaker 2:But our shadow side is the other. It's the dark. It's the things that we reject about ourselves, that we don't want anyone to know. It's our secrets, our skeletons, and what we often do is what we reject in ourselves we project onto other people. Yes, yes, often do is what we reject in ourselves we project onto other people. Yes, yes. So you know, let's say um, let's say you know, going back to um struggling with anger in the past, I would be very critical and judgmental of other people who had anger outbursts because, for god's sake, control yourself. You're in public, you know and it. But what it was is. It was me rejecting something I didn't like about myself and projecting it onto somebody else. Yeah, and so there's a.
Speaker 2:Oh, what's his name? Oh geez, I'm having a mind blank. You know, i'm'm gonna let you know so you can put it in the show notes. Yeah, he does an online self-paced program, um, for, uh, shadow work and it's probably the best um self-paced program that I've seen, because he's very, very into I mean, he has studied Jung and it's phenomenal and he has a program that's very inexpensive but it guides you through. Scott, hold on, hold on. I've got to do this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, search that up and I can do a bit of an edit here Scott Scott, scott, scott Scott.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're going to add this part out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Something that I could do myself just to learn how to delve into it with my counselling a bit more. Yeah, yeah, I think this is it. I just want to be 100% sure. Yeah, yeah, self-leadership, self-awareness, how to cultivate self-leadership, reducing anxiety yes, scott Jeffrey, scott Jeffrey, scott Jeffrey. So yeah, he is, google him, and he does a lot of work around self-discovery, and I think it's probably been the single greatest thing that I have done for my own is that society tells us who we should be.
Speaker 2:Social media tells us what we should look like. Our family or our nature or nurture, or our culture or our workplace tell us how we should behave and what ladder to climb and what success looks like, and in the process we lose ourselves, and this starts in childhood. So if I could ask you a question, did you name yourself?
Speaker 1:No, who named you, my parents?
Speaker 2:So you were given a label at birth and you've been carrying that label that somebody else gave you your entire life and you have you ever questioned it?
Speaker 1:No, I've liked the name Isabella. I've felt that was me. That's a beautiful name, it is.
Speaker 2:But we're all kind of in that same boat. We're labeled from birth and then we go through school and we go through testing and we're told what we're good at and what we're not good at, and these become ingrained beliefs that we have about ourselves. So we get to, yeah, middle age and we go. I don't know who I am. Why? Because you've never been given the opportunity.
Speaker 1:And I have to say there was something in your book that I really resonated with is that you can lose that sense of purpose or who you are if you've just gone through life ticking the checkboxes. So you go to uni, you get your uni degree, you then get a job, you get married, the kids, you're just, you're doing all the societal things that you're meant to do, but you haven't really looked at, well, what are my values? What do I actually love? What are my passions? Am I living in alignment with them? And you sort of become unstuck, can't you? There's that kind of friction between the lack of knowing who you are, living that kind of dual life, alcohol, addictions they can kind of form a salve to numb out that discord, but eventually you're going to have to work it out. How would you answer the question of a person that would say how do I work out who I am? Who am I, what's my you know? That question that would say how do I work out who I am? Who am I?
Speaker 2:What's my you know that question is a hard one to give guidance to. But your book goes there, which I love, yeah, and I really wanted to go deep on that and I think every, every one of those chapters. So the you know, the first half of the book, as you know, is my personal story and it's it's. It's dark in the beginning, just to give that context, but then you know it's it gets better and better and better as, as I talk about recovery and, and you know, getting into athletics and learning how to manage anger and all that whatnot. Then the second half, each chapter, is dedicated to one of those letters. But I really wanted each of those letters to intertwine with each other and follow on and, you know, to help people to answer those questions, and in fact, I'm in the process of making a workbook to go with that second half.
Speaker 2:Oh, fantastic, yeah. So that it's not the story itself, it's just the framework and guiding questions on, you know, discovering your core values. You know asking yourself about the influencers that you had in your early life. You know how do you identify. Do you identify with who you are, what you have, or do you identify with who you're not and what you don't have?
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a sharp question, isn it?
Speaker 2:that's a good it is, it is, it is, and you know that. And people get really hung up on on purpose and direction and I think all those things really add to our stress levels because when we start thinking about those things over and over my god, I don't know who I am, I don't know where I'm supposed to be and how I identify bravery. A lot of people think, well, I'm not a very brave person because they think of these male archetypes parachuting into enemy territory. But I talk about emotional bravery, social bravery, financial bravery, spiritual, spiritual bravery, and when you put it down like that, it actually empowers people to go, wow, I'm a lot braver than I think I am yeah and you know, okay, let's look at my values.
Speaker 2:So stay tuned for the workbook, because it's it will guide even more in depth um to help people with those questions.
Speaker 1:Yep, when you do that, send the link to purchase that and I'll go back in and edit and plonk it in this episode. You have definitely demonstrated bravery throughout your whole life. The experience that you went through you managed to turn around into something to grow from, learn from and help others. Yes, what qualities do you think you have learnt and gained from everything you've been through that you now bring into your present work? What are the qualities and skills that your early life set you up for to do the work that you do now?
Speaker 2:I don't believe in strengths and weaknesses. Aha, I actually think that we have tendencies and the tendencies and this is something I'll credit my mentor, my grinder, with, because he taught me this he said we have tendencies and we have behaviors and they can be productive or they can be unproductive. So I have always been tenacious, motivated, a little bit recalcitrant Not we all and persevere, and I've always had a lot of grit. So in when I was drinking and and using, it was those qualities that I was using in an unproductive way that had me drinking a lot more than other people. They've gotten into a lot of trouble, but now they're the exact same qualities that get me to the finish line of a marathon.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh goosebumps.
Speaker 2:There's no difference. It's just the way we choose to use our strengths, yeah, and how we recognize our values. And when you know I talk about the wet bathing suit feeling about when we're not in alignment with our values, it's kind of like you get that achy, feeling like you're wearing somebody else's wet bathing suit.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh, such good imagery yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I, you know I've I've started to recognize that I have these tendencies and they can be productive or unproductive and I really have to be self-aware every day and I have to be badass every day. I have to stay on top of it because I can easily go back into unproductive. You know I know how to manipulate, I know how to deceit, I know how to lie. You know I'm very good at those things, but I'm also very good at, you know, coaching people and their values and being altruistic and being an excellent friend and mother and a wife. It's just how I'm choosing to use that and so that's kind of like my trigger. If I'm out of alignment with how I'm using those tendencies, I feel that icky feeling, yes, and I need to circle back and go okay, why am I not in alignment with my values at the moment?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really like the way you've spoken about that and sort of has echoes there of just your awareness around what came out of shadow work, knowing what your negative tendencies are. But I love how you spoke about we've got a choice. We've got a choice to lean into the positives or the negatives of our tendencies, something that a lot of our listeners love to know about, particularly from people that have managed to sustain a sober lifestyle for quite a period of time and when you're in a good phase, when it's all working well for you, what's part of that daily practice that you know works? And sort of referring to that you you know people talk about needing something in that routine. It's not just you know that, the toolkit kind of things. It's actually a practice that can sustain you for the long term. What's what's yours?
Speaker 2:when I'm at my best and my healthiest? Um, I start my day running because that is that is my time to go into myself and that's my meditative time. I do run my own business, so I do work from home, and that can get me into a high stress or high anxiety state if I'm alone and behind screens too long. Um. So, again, having the self awareness of maybe scheduling lunch with a friend. Yeah, I practice karate, so I usually practice at night, but there are daytime classes, so you know lunchtime classes, and if I'm feeling particularly, particularly, um, wound up about something, then I have the dojo just right down the street and so that fills the connection for me. So it's that balance of introspection and meditation where it's just me. Especially I love, like you know, when it's crisp and cold in the morning. You know 10 to 12 degrees, and you'll get that in Melbourne.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's the only thing I like about winter being from LA, yeah, yeah, but I start my day inside me and a lot of people start their day with a meditative practice. That's just the way I do it. And then I do some work and then I kind of just do that self check and this body scans throughout the day and if I need to get out, I get out. Even just going for a walk can reset, but it's it's learning what your particular triggers are and when I'm like. When I was writing my book, it was during one of the lockdowns and I was behind screens for 14 hours a day, seven days a week. Ouch, I was a basket case, yeah, but I was also a basket case because I was going back into the dark corners of my mind of things that I didn't want to remember. Yeah and yeah.
Speaker 1:It's a hard time for many people, wasn't it A really hard time?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, when it's a hard time. For many people wasn't it A really hard time? Yeah, yeah, when I'm not at my best, though I'll flip. That is when I get out of that routine, and the people closest to me my best friends, my sisters, my husband if I am too quiet, they know I'm not okay, so connection is critical. Yeah, if I start skipping runs if I start skipping karate classes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, warning signs and then that's what leads to not seeing the potholes in the road. Um, but you know, being a fighter, and you know I've been doing karate for eight years now, so you know I kind of use that as a metaphor for life, that you know I've learned how to. I get hit, I get kicked, I get knocked down, but I get back up every time and I punch back, I kick back, and no matter how frustrated I am, I still show up. And so there's been times where I have, you know, had small lapses in my recovery. But it's, I kind of say it's like recovery is not a smoothly paved road. It is filled with bumps and potholes and you have to have your wits about you because sometimes, if you're not paying attention, you might hit one of those potholes and blow a tire. But then you have a choice. You have a choice to pull over immediately and fix the tire, or you can keep going and ruin the wheel, the axle, and write the car off yeah, beautifully said, beautifully said, so beautifully said.
Speaker 1:Particularly love how you touched on that sense of not connecting, going silent, withdrawing, not getting away from the screen. They're all you know. Particularly if you had those ADHD tendencies, you can really squirrel down into a topic or something on the screen but it's at your detriment potentially with connection and getting out and about. Yeah, that was a lovely reflection, thank you. I know that will be really valuable for many people. Look, before I ask you where people can find you, is there anything else you'd like to add, just to say to our listeners about your story, about what you do, any words of wisdom as some parting comments.
Speaker 2:You know, I think for anybody that's listening to this, whatever adversity you've been through or you're going through right now, you know, never, ever give up on yourself. And I say like in the conclusion of my book you know it only takes one match to spark an explosion, and I think many of us, myself included, often don't give ourselves enough credit for how powerful we really are. And you know we are much more powerful than we give ourselves credit for, especially if we've had a lot of limiting beliefs and negative messages that have been ingrained in our psyche or the way we talk to ourselves, if we're not in habit of positive self-talk. You know stress is something that sneaks up on you and you often don't notice how stressed you are until you have been beaten down so low.
Speaker 2:And you know. So I would say, you know, find a tribe, find people who will support you unconditionally and let them know what your triggers are. Yeah, I have to tell people. If you don't hear from me for three days, call me.
Speaker 1:I may not be okay. Yeah Well, that's vulnerability, that's friendship, that's life, that's what we're all here to do, and to support one another. Nikki Langman, you are a badass. You're certainly a badass that I'd like to have in my corner. I just loved your book, love meeting you, learning more about your story. Where can our listeners find you if they want to just learn about you? Purchase this book, uh, engage your services absolutely.
Speaker 2:um my website, nikki langmancom, and um, if, if you're interested in buying the book, I will. Um, actually, I'll give you a discount code for your listeners. Oh, yes, that you can put in the show notes exclusively for your listeners. Um, because can put in the show notes is exclusively for your listeners. Um, because, even at the listed price that I have it on my website, it's still cheaper than Amazon. So, um, I'll sweeten the pot, I'll sweeten the deal because, um, yeah, because I think it's somewhat. Anyone can get something out of it, even if your story has nothing to do with, you know, lived experience. So, nikkilamoncom, or LinkedIn, I'm very active on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:Yes, Thank you. I'm going to put all of that in the show notes so you'll be all those links will be easy to find. Uh, thank you. What a what a lovely chat. Thank you so much thank you it's.
Speaker 2:It has been wonderful. I wish we could talk for another hour.
Speaker 1:I know so do I I'll have to have you come back on. Thanks, nikki. All right, thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed the content, please don't forget to rate, subscribe or leave a review about this podcast. These three things really help to get this podcast out to people that might need to hear it. You can find me at wwwisabellafergusoncomau. Jump on my website. Check out all the resources I've got there about alcohol, stress and burnout. You can also book in a free introductory call. It's a 30-minute confidential chat. If you are looking for a counsellor or a coach to support you to drink less or to manage your stress, I'm always here to chat. If you've got a question, please do not hesitate to reach out. I hope you have a really good day. See you later.
