Episode 72: How a Mother Finally Stood Up for Herself, Her Family Physically, Emotionally and Financially

Natasha Dewhirst

Natasha Dewhirst had a traumatic childhood which played a large part in her becoming so burnt out and landing in a wheelchair. Her three year recovery journey led to her life's purpose of supporting women living with burnout, stress and emotional overwhelm.

Natasha's business enables hundreds of women's globally to shortcut their healing free themselves from burnout, childhood trauma and stress so they can become the emotionally resilient women they were born to be. The ripple effect of this with their families and communities makes the world a better place

Social media and contact information:

https://www.instagram.com/natasha_c_dewhirst/
www.natashacarltondehwirst.com

Podcast Transcript:

Damaged Parents: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents were traumatized, tired, burnt out. People come to learn. Maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged.  

Someone once told me it's safe to assume. 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%.

Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about.

In my ongoing investigation of the damage self, I want to better understand how others view their own challenges. Maybe it's not so much about the damage, maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it. There is a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience?

My hero is the damaged person. The one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side hole. Those who stare directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose. These are the people who inspire me to be more fully me. Not in spite of my trials, but because of them, let's hear from another hero.

Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not appropriate for children. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as advice. The opinions expressed here are strictly those of the person who gave them.

Today, we're going to talk with Natasha du Hearst. She has many roles in her life. Mother sister daughter, foster mother, and more. We'll talk about how she survived a traumatic childhood. Lived with ptsd and repeated relationship patterns and chronic fatigue and then how she found health and healing let's talk

 Welcome to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We have Natasha Dewhirst with us today, and we're so glad you're here.

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:02:06] Thank you, Angela. I'm really glad to be here as well.

Damaged Parents: [00:02:09] Yeah. I'm excited to talk to you about the traumas in your life. And you had also stated that in a lot of times, I hear that in what is it? About talking about traumas and struggles for you that maybe it helps you feel good. what does that give you that talking about it makes it better.

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:02:31] Yeah, for me, there's a really key aspect to talking about trauma that I think is so valuable and if I rewind it about probably in my mid twenties, I, as an individual, didn't have the words. I didn't have the language to put onto the things that I'd been through. And so I'd had lots of traumatic events in my life all the way from the moment I was born.

And. I grew up with a very strict Roman Catholic family. And I went to a Catholic school and we very much had that mindset. We're British as well. Right. You don't explain, you don't complain. So all of these experiences were just silent within me. So I think personally from my own experience from experience with my clients, is that when you hear somebody share their story, when you hear them talk about the things that they've experienced, it gives you a language, it gives you the words, it enables you to make those connections to your own experiences.

So for me, That's why I'm so open and we'll talk about absolutely anything I've been through, because I know that then is giving somebody else, the language And the thoughts that they need to start connecting things. And that is where real healing happens.

Damaged Parents: [00:03:56] Right. And so you're a coach by trade. Tell us a little bit about your focus in your coaching.

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:04:03] Absolutely. So I'm what I call a therapeutic coach. So I'm qualified in, I'm a licensed therapeutic practitioner. I'm also a qualified health and wellbeing coach, and I've also qualified in trauma training and I've come into this. Like a lot of people I'm my own best client. When I was going through things, I couldn't quite get all of the bits and pieces that I needed in one place.

And so I wanted to share what I had learned with other people. And. So I spend my time helping other people that have gone through traumatic events. you know, I had a woman recently and she'd been through a heart operation and she had really, from that got of course some, post-traumatic stress.

I've worked with people who have trauma in their childhood and have never been able to release that emotional pain and, have since developed illnesses or have become more susceptible to things in their life because of those adverse childhood experiences. And then I, work with people that have had traumatic things happen to them in their life.

If coaching and well-beings support that's great. And really it's my mission I guess, too. Help people remove that negative impact of traumatic experiences wherever they've happened in their life and helping them to release that from their body, because all of this gets stored in our body at a cellular level to release that emotionally, physically, so that we can just go on and just live our lives without these things weighing us down.

Damaged Parents: [00:05:43] Right, which is so important. So let's talk about those traumas, those struggles, if you will, and you, I heard you say. Starting pretty much from birth things were tough. Maybe if you would just start the story and then we'll investigate along the way, I'll ask you some questions and we'll go from there.

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:06:02] Yeah, absolutely Angelie. Yeah. More than happy to share from that. I mean, my own personal journey started when my mother fell pregnant at a very young age. And she'd been through private school. She had, we have the strict Roman Catholic family, and that was not part of the plan. So that was very shameful for them.

And it brought a lot of upset and distress to other members of the family. So, Well, when I was born, I was actually put in foster care. So straight away I didn't have that attachment. I didn't have that bonding with my mother that obviously infants need to thrive. And. She is a remarkable woman.

She then came back and she was able to get herself into a position where she could take me out of foster care a year later. But at this point she'd been quite traumatized by giving me up. She'd struggled along and she really wasn't able to mother me in the way that she would have done if she'd had this tight supportive family network around her.

So for her, it was a lot of trial and error and a lot of mistakes,

Damaged Parents: [00:07:15] So was

She alone with like the parents when she came to get you a year later, the parents were not supportive.

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:07:23] no, not at all completely disowned her and me. It was a different generation as well Angela, at that point she was very young for her age and, she really was just doing her best and money was short, resources were short. And, with that, Along comes, people will take advantage of that so she then had a catalog of events where we were both impacted by people trying to take advantage of her.

So there was fires, there were burglaries, there was abuse, there was neglect, there was all kinds going on in my childhood and the important thing about that is it depletes your life source. So it depends on what, what medicines you believe in. If you're looking at perhaps traditional Chinese medicine, then you would say somebody in that situation has got really low water, energy source.

If you're looking at, attachment theory from psychotherapy, you'd say, well, somebody really then has got like attachment disorders from that situation because they growing up in a fearful alum, safe environment. And if you're just looking at the impact on the physical body and somebody's mental wellbeing, again, that feeling of not being safe then comes out as other behaviors, not being able to sleep you know, struggling to trust people.

So for me, that whole catalog of all those childhood years left me as a very depleted young adult. And the positive thing that came out of it because there's always light and dark. It's never just, it was terrible and awful.  You know, My mom and I had some beautiful moments. She was, a very kind woman.

The beautiful thing that came out of it is I have this huge amount of drive and resilience because at a very young age, I had to look after my mother because it, became clear to me that she needed that help and support and. Because of that. And then along came two sisters at later dates.

I then had this phenomenal drive. So I left home very young. I went through my university education did really well, went through, got my first few jobs and was a real high achiever, escalated very quickly had all the perks of that. So financially was very secure. Met and married my first love, we had two beautiful children, so there were many kind of bonuses are the flip side of that.

And your listeners are freaking out. I know what's going to come next. Right. The flip side of that was, actually, it looked like. this amazing life, but I didn't know who I was. I had this need to be perfect. This need to control because if I wasn't perfect and I didn't take control, then I was unsafe and somebody might not love me and might reject me.

So there was that real, fear driving my behaviors. Alongside then needing to be this perfect mother for these two beautiful humans I'd brought onto the planet. you know, It was my time to kind of, I'm going to be this amazing mother. And birthdays were like ridiculous.

I'd get up at five. The whole house would be trimmed and everything would be amazing and I'd be, flagging in the corner, but it was all done and it was wonderful. And my life was very much like that. I just pushed and pushed at work, went up the career ladder very, very quickly.

I'm really had this belief that I could do anything I was unstoppable. And then the inevitable happened. I stopped. And when I say I stopped, I didn't just like, stop going to work or stopping able to do these amazing things. I physically stopped.

Damaged Parents: [00:11:11] Like a burnout.

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:11:12] yeah. Yeah. Like a complete and utter burnout.

Damaged Parents: [00:11:17] Was it like you just couldn't get out of bed one day and it went from there?

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:11:23] Yeah, absolutely. That's exactly what it was. I woke up one day and I couldn't even sit up to brush my hair. I was absolutely just gone.

Damaged Parents: [00:11:33] Physically weak.

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:11:35] Physically weak, physically weak. mentally foggy. And there've been a couple of things leading up to that. So I had flu influenza and I had a really big event at work and I just.

Didn't feel, that I could pass it over to someone else because I thought then I would be seen as incapable, not very good at my job all these negative thoughts going through my head. So I push, push pushed I had a christening at the weekend, which was in the next city. And that was a long drive. And I did that.

I got there came home absolutely no idea how I drove home. Went to bed and then just couldn't get up. And I was like that for two and a half years.

Damaged Parents: [00:12:19] So you had the flu that kind of triggered this, but well, and maybe it wouldn't have, had you not pushed, pushed, pushed. Is that what your thought was?

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:12:28] Yeah, absolutely. I think I was so depleted and I was so depleted of living in survival. We know about this fight and flight response from the body. And then I think, as a child, because that was such a common response for me to the situations, I was constantly finding myself and my response become almost faulty.

So I was used to living in that place and, I just stayed in that place. I think until literally everything had gone out of me and I had depleted, every part of me

Damaged Parents: [00:13:04] What were those emotions around? was it scary? Were you angry? When you're in bed feeling this way, what was going through your mind?

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:13:13] Yeah.

it was absolutely terrifying because I had two young children. And so here I was in this situation, I'd always dreamed off of being, being mothers, loving these beautiful children and I couldn't do anything and it was horrific. And at the time they didn't know what was wrong with me.

And I was having brain scans or something, all kinds done because I had this constant headache. And so they were like, well, we think it might be something that your brain needs to have a look. And there was just no answers. Nobody said, this is where you are. You've burned out spectacular.

You've pushed yourself into chronic fatigue. you know, you've had a kind of breakdown. There were no answers. It was like, well, let's test this thing and see if it's this let's test this. And then, oh, it's not let's test the next thing. And then it was almost like a diagnosis when there was nothing else that they could find physically wrong with me.

But that process took a really long time. So it was, it was a really challenging, scary, fearful time. And, financially I've been the main breadwinner and, my work were amazing, but that only lasted so long because. They couldn't keep my position open. They had to get somebody in to take up my cases.

And, I was terrified. I was terrified. I was going to lose my house. I was terrified what was going to happen to my children. And so frustrated because I couldn't do a thing about it.

Damaged Parents: [00:14:40] Were there feelings of guilt and shame because you had grown up with this idea or at least it sounded like it to me that you'd grown up with this idea that you could pretty much fix or make anything work

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:14:52] Yeah, absolutely.

Damaged Parents: [00:14:54] so when you couldn't heal yourself, Did you get mad at yourself? What was that like?

I mean, I'm thinking those thoughts went through your head. Why can't I heal myself? What's going on? Things like that

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:15:04] Yeah, why I'm why me? I mean, I have to say I became the biggest victim going. I was like, I don't know how anybody listened to me during that period of my life, because it was why me, why am I in this situation? I don't deserve this. I've done so much. I've been through so much. I was really at that bottom of that energetic pile, I was.

You know, It was really bitching and moaning about everything and also scared and fearful. And like you say that guilt for my children. Oh my goodness. Actually I I'm the one, but it took me, it took me a while to realize I was alone. And it took me a while to realize the things that I was doing that was keeping me in that place that would push me into that place.

That was quite a long journey to put those pieces together. Because again, I didn't really understand where I was. This was no man's land. And I didn't understand that I had. I had got a hair from, by my behaviors of always needing to be perfect. I've always needing to be in control of always needing to get to that next step on the ladder.

So it was, definitely, it was a process of self discovery. That's for sure.

Damaged Parents: [00:16:16] And that was happening during that two and a half years. I mean, cause it sounds like at first there was just test after test, after test and failure to figure out what's going on.

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:16:26] Yeah. So the first year was definitely just like all medical because it was like three months. You have to have symptoms for three months before they'll, start taking some things seriously because it's, if you haven't had it.

for that long, it's not a permanent or it may not be a long-term thing.

So there was like this waiting period, there were tests and there was this waiting period. And then there were more tests. I'm more waiting. And eventually I got diagnosed with chronic fatigue and it was a diagnosis by default because they couldn't find anything else. And I went on a course and learn about grading and pacing, which is all about managing your energy and, none of it worked. .

Damaged Parents: [00:17:10] How hard was pacing for you? Like you're saying it didn't work.

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:17:15] Yeah, it just, wasn't working for me.

Damaged Parents: [00:17:18] okay, I've got to ask do you think pacing didn't work in some sense because of your go stick-to-it-iv and go-get-ed-ness I know none of those are words, but some of them are words, but that. At that point, pacing would be extremely difficult, I would think because you're already beating yourself up.

How did you end up figuring it out though?

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:17:41] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so yeah, the grading and the pacing didn't work for me because I was an all or nothing girl at that point. It's like, I either do everything I need to do or I do nothing and be a victim. And so the time that that changed and I started figuring it out was when I started learning more about the mind body connection.

And I started learning as much as I was able to. And it was really small kind of chunks at first. And I started trying different therapies. I started trying different techniques. I'll be reading self-help books and. The techniques I was learning were really invaluable and really helpful, but they weren't moving the needle for me.

They weren't making a difference for me because of where I was. Yes.

Damaged Parents: [00:18:27] Okay. I've got to ask. So physically, they were trying to teach you how to pace physically, but it sounds like what I'm hearing you say is working with your mind and learning and educating yourself is where the real growth started to take off.

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:18:42] absolutely. Yeah. There were two things that made all the difference. One was self-responsibility and stepping out of that victim mindset and, really kind of going Okay.

You know what you've ended up here for a reason, and you now need to, work on that and take responsibility for what you need to, because I've grown up in a Western society with what Western medicine. So, surely you give me a pill and I'm fixed, or  you send me to this thing and then it's done with I didn't understand that actually I needed to take charge of my own healing and I needed to. Try different approach is to reconnect myself to myself, to bring myself home because I was so disconnected from who I was and what my body was needing.

So it given me all these warning signs, it warned me that I was getting ill. It was warning me that it was running out of energy, but I was like, yeah, I haven't got time for that. Be quiet. I've got this thing to do over here.

Damaged Parents: [00:19:44] So, What do you think your warning was getting sick or were there other warnings that you

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:19:49] there were definitely other warnings. There were definitely other warnings I would get towards just before I burned out. I was getting colds all of the time. I had irritable bowel syndrome all the time. I had all these aches and pains, headaches. There were all kinds of things going on, but I just dismiss them, you know, they, just, to me, I was like, I had that mentality.

You just push through things that was a sign of weakness to stop to rest. Just keep going, just keep going. You'll get through it, go to the next project, go to the next thing you need to do for your children. If you don't get enough sleep, that's okay. There's always tomorrow. And of course, We know where that ends up.

So that self responsibility of seeing my own kind of, behaviors was the turning point. And along with that was this mind body connection. And what I hadn't realized is how much I was down on myself on how much I was saying to myself, like, The stresses is too much, I've got too much going on.

This is too much, it's too busy. And it wasn't just me saying these things like my family would come and visit and they would see that I had these two young children this career. One of my children has additional needs and there was lots of playing out with that. And. I was saying it's too much.

And they were saying to me, it's too much. You're going to have a breakdown. This isn't good for you. This isn't good for your health. So all of this feedback was going into my mind and my mind was going you're in danger here. This isn't good for you. You're going to get ill. And of course, what we think about the most comes about.

So, you know, I was thinking about all, this is too much stress. And of course, then my body was like, right, well, I'm going to stop all that. And I'm going to protect you. And it's like it.

shut down. So understanding and changing, changing how I felt about the situation I was in, which was really hard because I wasn't happy.

Damaged Parents: [00:21:54] Yeah. And you're in a situation that now at this point, that seems like to me, you're literally learning control does not exist. Like you can't fix this. You can't make it better

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:22:07] Surrender.

Damaged Parents: [00:22:08] Based on what you're telling me about your personality before that that's so hard.

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:22:13] Yeah. it's really hard, but it's also like, hang on without that identity. Who am I? So it really was literally breaking me open

Damaged Parents: [00:22:24] So you had to figure out who you were

 outside of the things you could do

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:22:31] Or achieve

Damaged Parents: [00:22:32] Okay. So now it became about who you are on the inside. as a human being

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:22:40] yeah,

yeah. Doing, yeah,

Damaged Parents: [00:22:43] Right.

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:22:44] And the other thing that was so unfamiliar was how to look after myself because I had no model for that. I didn't know what self care was like. I didn't know what that looked like. I never had anyone say to me, you know, my mum was great at feeding me when I was a little girl, but when I got to kind of like maybe 11, 12, she had all kinds of other stuff going on and I was bringing myself up.

I was bringing my sisters up. I was working from, 12. So I didn't know what self care was. So it was like, I'd missed this developmental stage as a child. So that was a big part of it because I'm cracked open. Right. I don't know who I am because I've lost my job. So I've lost my identity. I lost my husband.

We divorced and I'm a single parent, these two children and I'm ill and it's like okay. How do I change? Is I know how to nurture my children and I know how to love then that comes from the core of me that's unconditional, but doing that for me, that was such a challenge

Damaged Parents: [00:23:49] Yeah. How did you learn to find value in who you were at that point? Because

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:23:56] point. yeah.

At that point, it was real baby steps and it was almost like a tick box. Yeah. I can laugh now looking back because when I think about, where I am today and the things that I do to nurture myself and the things I was doing, then that was quite fast to cook cause it was almost like a checkbox exercise.

Okay. Have three rests a day of 20 minutes. Try and meditate try and eat well, but it was just things I didn't understand, really. I didn't understand why that was important. I didn't understand the benefits of doing that. And I belie that. So rendering, but there was still a part of me that was like, I've got so much to do.

I shouldn't be lying here. I should be like trying to make the children's dinner or I should be trying to keep my house clean or all those other expectations and shoulds that we place on us themselves.

Damaged Parents: [00:24:51] So almost beating yourself up for your 20 minute breaks.

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:24:55] yeah, absolutely.

Damaged Parents: [00:24:56] In that's in the first, the second year, I'm thinking you're starting

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:25:00] yeah.

Damaged Parents: [00:25:01] breaks

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:25:02] Yeah. The second year was like my learning year. It was all about, okay, actually I'm in this place and I've been in this place for this whole period of time. It's not changing. I need to change. And then learning how I needed to change it. But that was a long process. And if I'm completely candid with you, Angela, I got out of burnout in two and a half years, but I spent the next five years working back at work.

Single mom moved home, managing a home, doing all the things, taking the children holiday. And I kept almost going back to that place again. I would get so close and pull myself out. And I remember driving to work one day and it was insane. And I know thousands of people and women are in a man, fathers are in this same position.

You have literally no turnaround time. You, drop your children. at school, you drive like a crazy person to work. You go to work, you don't stop. You do the things that you need to do at work. You drive like a crazy person back to school. You take your child to their classes, you take your child home and cook them dinner.

You do all the things you're doing housework. There is no space and grace in your day. And I literally remember sitting outside one at work one day, just crying, thinking, I can't keep doing this. I cannot do this to myself any longer. And that was a bit of a turning point for me, because that was me saying actually my needs matter and not just because of.

the jobs that I need to do or the roles that I have, but it matters for me.

And. That was when I really took quite seriously the research I was doing about the mind body connection and started really learning what people were doing out there, what leading people were doing. And I went and did some training with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, and learned all about the trauma response and what happens when people have been through trauma and how it affects our minds and how our body holds that trauma and how was that deep emotion?

And I have many amazing mentors, but it's, it was a real journey to learn the pieces cause they just, they weren't there.

 Damaged Parents: [00:27:21] not sure how old your kids are now, but with kids. And so you had to learn and teach yourself self care and to take time and these baby steps, is it hard because of the situation you grow up in and your mindset around that, has it been hard to shift to teaching your kids? It's okay to have self care and, yeah, I think that's a question I want to ask

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:27:48] yeah.

Yeah. yeah. So I have, I have a 21 year old And I have a 16 year old and teaching and to look after themselves has been easy.

Damaged Parents: [00:27:58] yeah.

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:27:59] It's been so easy, I think we were such a loving, close family and the children's daddy, he lives around the corner and we're such a lovely little community together.

We all get on really well. And it's been easy to show them, this is how you need to look after yourself, give yourself time, do these things. Now, following that you see, and children are notoriously like this. They've got to find their own path. They got to learn their own lessons. If we all learn from everybody else's mistakes, then there would be no mistakes in the world, but we have to make our own.

But what I see in them as they get older, I see the way that it's coming back to them. So these lessons were embedded from a young age, and then they go through these years of like, I'm going to try and live on Haribos if you let me and not tell her and not, look after myself. And then I see them now, you know my son is the most amazing cook and he's all about nutrition and being well and healthy.

And my daughter, she has these really good practices, so yeah, I see it come back out, but you know, there are years where you think, oh, it's not going in it. It's not going in. And then it's like, give them time, give them time.

Damaged Parents: [00:29:12] Now it, at one point you utilized a wheelchair

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:29:17] Yeah. 

Damaged Parents: [00:29:17] to get around. What was that like? And what was your mindset around having to use it?

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:29:22] Oh, again, real resistance. You know, I was not making my journey easier at this point, I was in such a place of denial and my best friend got married and she wanted me to be her, her maid of honor. And I was, delighted for her to ask me for about all of five minutes. And then I was like, oh, how's that even gonna work?

And she's incredible. And she, in her mind had it all planned out.

 And So you know, going to her wedding being pushed in a wheelchair was horrible, really horrible. it was lovely to be there for her and to see her beautiful day and to be part of that, but to actually then to be because there's, a lot about.

When we go through our challenges, a lot of our challenges are invisible. Sometimes they're visible, but most of the time that invisible. And so we get very good at hiding what's going on for us and how challenging things were. So, you know, I used to, I couldn't do the school run, so people used to come and pick my children up on the way to school.

Because we were on the path to school and I'd just smile. And then I'd collapse. And you try and hide how bad things are because you don't want to be the one that is moaning all the time. Although I was that person too. So to be out this way, dating and to have all of these people that I've known for many years, seen me in a wheelchair was.

It was heartbreaking. I felt like a real failure. I really did. I just felt broken. And again, that story had come through from childhood. So I was just, seeing what I already believed I'm broken and I'm not good enough. I can't do all these things. Everybody else can, but I can't. And it was really shameful.

Damaged Parents: [00:31:13] So it sounds like more than being in the wheelchair. It was the stories that you were telling yourself in your mind.

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:31:20] Absolutely. Yeah. it was the meaning I gave to it. Whereas, at this point in my life, if for whatever reason I was in a wheelchair, I would have a completely different mindset about it. But at that point, I just didn't know how to be. Different in myself. I didn't know how to be softer. I didn't know how to surrender.

I didn't know how to move into that place of acceptance and see that that would have brought me more relief, more joy, more happiness, more acceptance. It just was alien to me because I hadn't grown up with that.

Damaged Parents: [00:31:55] Yeah. And I think what I heard you say was the, and you use the word different. You didn't know how to be different   And I think that's really interesting in that, you know, especially when you haven't had to use adaptive resources and then you have to use it, and you've got type A personality.

I'm going to add that in there, like

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:32:19] Yeah.

Damaged Parents: [00:32:19] that, that you did something wrong and that you cause you can't fix it. And now you're in this wheelchair and I'm thinking this is along the pathway of what you were, what was happening inside of your mind, because I'm willing to bet that. Most of the people saw you in the wheelchair, but they didn't treat you as if you were in the wheelchair with the exception of pushing it.

I'm just wondering what your, if your experience was that, or no.

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:32:46] Absolutely. I mean, I think people were very supportive and very helpful and very kind and. Yeah, but it, didn't really hit the spot because, you know, for me it was what was going on in my head. And so even though they were being, just decent people and normal people, it didn't interrupt

that belief cycle that was going on in my head. And you know, I mentioned to you that I got divorced. I think one of the most challenging things was my husband was not used to having somebody who needed to be helped. So I was the breadwinner. I was the pusher. I was the grafter. I had all the ideas and we made things happen.

And when I got ill the hardest thing was that he didn't believe that I was ill so he would keep pushing me and pushing me and felt that by kind of like trying to bully me into doing stuff that it would change things. And, having the wheelchair was another part of that story that ended in our, parting ways.

Because what do you mean? You can't walk? Just walk. Everybody can walk, no understanding of that fatigue and the muscle pain that came with that. And I think, even my consultant took him to task and said, you've got to understand this is not something you can just turn off.

Or push through or So there was a lack of understanding, even at home, which was really then adding to the narrative, adding to the stories and the beliefs that I had,  that, you know, I was broken, not good enough because, you know, he thinks I should be able to push through it. Why can't I, why can't I just, cause that's what I've always done.

I've powered through I've powered through, but I'm not able to anymore.

Damaged Parents: [00:34:39] So I think what I heard you saying is you already had those stories happening in your mind. And then on top of that, you had the additional stories happening coming from him. And so which furthermore kept you in . The struggle or maybe you made it worse,

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:34:56] Yeah, I think it made it worse.  He's a lovely guy. He certainly didn't mean to make it worse. right?

He was trying to think this was his way of fixing. So he was like, right. Well, if I inspire her, if I motivate her or if I coach her, that's going to get her fixed. So he was just coming from his learning.  For me, that was like almost then there was this internal shame and guilt and fear and isolation. And then taking what he was saying and adding, I'm feeding into this story as well. You know, Nobody understands me, not even my husband understands me. Nobody's got my back, nobody's helping me.

I'm all alone with this. And of course thinking like that just makes it worse. It makes everything worse.

Damaged Parents: [00:35:43] Yeah, I, gosh, something just really hit me in that when we watch movies of people becoming. Heroes, if you will, in their own lives, the coach, the idea of how you described your husband. If I just challenge her a little bit more, if I just push her a little bit more then she's going to break through and there's going to be this miraculous cure that's going to happen.

And all of a sudden, sudden she's going to be back to normal. And I think that's really interesting that that's what flashed through my mind, because. I think it's easy in society. We watch all those. That's what we watch in the movies, and so you probably had that same movie happening in your head.

Again, we already talked about that. You did have a lot of those same lines should be able to do this. I should be able to do that. And so how did you start to shift? I mean, I heard you did a lot of reading. So you saw Bessel van der Kolk or you did a workshop with him. And then it sounds like you did a lot of learning with your coaching

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:36:38] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I, I started reading a lot of books about trauma. I started reading a lot of books about, therapeutic approaches to resolving mind, body issues and that you know, somatic link and this was my start to where I am now because the pennies just started dropping.

And it was a long time till that happened. It was a long time until I connected the dots. But when I did, oh my goodness, it was like ping, ping, ping, ping, all this new awareness of everything that had been going on for me. So you know, I became very aware that my childhood. Experiences had depleted my immunity that depleted, my iron levels were always low.

I've got every cold and virus going. I was then aware. So we have the physical element. Right. I was aware that my energetic side was suffering because of the physical. And then I. I started to understand  the mind side where, you know, I had this negative language, I had these negative beliefs and I was then, keeping myself in a movie that was so negative.

I was projecting all these negative things that happened in my childhood. Onto myself. And I didn't know what it was doing that it's taken many years to work that out. But what happens is, we become what we believe and what we think most about. And of course, that's just where I was. So as soon as I started pulling back the layers on the onion, which I know is, analogy, that's used a lot, but it's true.

You stop peeling these things back and oh, okay. Yeah, that, that led to that. And this led to that. I could see really clearly. Why I'd ended up where I did, but more importantly, I could see the behaviors, why I had had the behaviors and the beliefs that I did. And once I could see almost like this chain going back all the way back to my childhood and why I'd become this.

Driven, higher achiever and why self care was so unfamiliar to me meeting my own needs. I didn't even know what my needs were, once I could see all of that. I could really, I really started leaping forward in who I was and what I could achieve. And, in reconnecting this mind body that I have you know, and that's where eventually I cited.

I was working on a lot of health projects and I'm supporting a lot of businesses and social enterprises. And at this point I was like, Hmm, I just want to work with the people. Because, organizations only grow as big as the person running them. And I'd seen that in my own life and I just wanted to them work one-to-one with people.

So I retrained and I trained as a rapid transformational therapist. I trained as a health and wellbeing coach.

And I trauma trained as well and many other things, but those were like my three kind of tools. And then it literally was, working for many years with people in different situations and bringing value to them and giving them the shortcuts.

I wish somebody has been able to show me

Damaged Parents: [00:39:59] So I'm thinking at some point during the journey and I think you spoke of this early on, you got it logically and you understood, you needed to lay down for 20 minutes, three times a day or whatever. And how long did it take. I don't know that it was necessarily during that second year, that, that I got that.

I think it, cause you said after the two and a half years, there was another, what? Five years of training. So my question goes back to how long did it take to go from understanding logically to emotionally understanding that if I don't know how to better explain that question, but I think you understand what I mean.

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:40:34] Yeah. Yeah, I do understand what you mean and I'm not sure I can put a timeframe on that because, I knew these things with my mind, but I didn't know them.

Damaged Parents: [00:40:46] And you're pointing to your heart.

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:40:48] Yeah.

I didn't know them. I didn't understand properly. It was a checklist. Do this thing, do this thing, do this thing, do all these things in a day and then you'll get better. And some of that was true, but some of that wasn't true because just that mindset of, I have to tick all these things off my list it's not a really healthy mindset. Right. I'm almost putting myself back there by keeping these behaviors and having these lists and these expectations.

Damaged Parents: [00:41:17] I'm just envisioning the type, A personality that you have to check off the list. And if you don't check off the list and then again, that negative, thing starts up in your mind again, and it

can be a real cycle, right? Yeah. Oh, so how do you reconcile with that?

If

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:41:34] Yeah.

Damaged Parents: [00:41:34] you don't get your list done?

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:41:35] Yeah. again, it's this journey And even as a therapist and helping many, many clients with their stories and finding out what the beliefs are and the stories that they've been stuck in, even that is the most powerful step.

Right. But until you get the mind body, Until you get that bit until you know this stuff in your heart until you feel it and you understand it and you understand what your body's telling you and you understand what you're feeling until you get that bit. That's when you can go. Yeah, I get it. Now I get it.

And I can take responsibility for keeping myself well, because I feel it.

Damaged Parents: [00:42:22] Yeah. And I'm thinking you had to do a lot of investigation into what your emotions even felt like and what emotion you were having

before that connection of the logic and understanding happened.

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:42:37] Definitely. And there's processes like somatic tracking and many, many, many exercises like that, that I use with my clients to teach, Okay. You're feeling, you're upset what happened in that moment before you got upset. Okay. Where do you feel that in your body? And then finding, okay.

I feel really tight in my chest. Okay, so you feel tight in your chest. What else is your body feeling? And then, there's many steps to that process, but the point that I'm trying to share, I guess out of that is the next time your chest gets tight before your mind works out.

What's happening for you? Your body knows. Oh, my chest is tight. That happens when I get upset that happens when I'm sad. Something's making me sad. so you can build your emotional intelligence. You can build your mind, body connection, not with the mind, but with the body. And for me, that was fantastic because the chattering mind was always trying to find the answers and do it right, and be perfect at it.

But if you do it with the body, the body doesn't have ego. The body just does.

Damaged Parents: [00:43:48] So it sounds like really learning to listen to what my body is telling me. And it sounds also because you had to kind of work backwards at first and go, okay, what did the body feel like before that? And then try to start putting that together. That's how you started figuring out what the emotion was. And was that confusing at first for you?

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:44:13] It was completely alien because, and this is often the case for people that have had any form of trauma, and you might have people listening, going, I haven't been through any trauma, but let me tell you, we've all been through trauma and trauma can be something as being shamed when you're a child by one of your parents, or it could be being shouted out by your teacher, or it could be any number of things that we don't necessarily register as trauma, as well as sadly, the bigger things that happen.

But trauma is trauma. And when you've had trauma and it's involved your body and responses by your body. So you've gone into fight and flight and  your mind and body are trying to keep you safe and trying to move you away from something by saying danger, danger, but that also sets off a racing heart and you feel hot and you feel sweaty.

If you've had that a lot in your life and you might actually feel like your body's broken and you might feel like your body is letting you down and you might be going to the doctors saying things like, well, I keep having these panic attacks and I keep getting this pain and I keep getting these headaches and you see it as something that needs.

To be fixed instead of a warning instead of like helpful information that your body's actually saying to you. Right. Okay. I need to protect you. So I'm gonna, I'm going to make your heart race to show you that I'm protecting you to show you that there's something we need to be careful. So this whole learning to read our bodies.

It's very challenging for somebody that's had trauma, because if we've had trauma, we're even more disconnected from our bodies because we've either had to suppress or repress something that our bodies try to tell us because we've had to stay safe or we've had to disassociate, or we had to ignore. And so that reconnection, somebody might be saying, well I know what my body's feeling all the time.

But if you've had challenging situations in your life, or you've had a time where you felt like your body's let you down, it really is like learning from scratch.

Damaged Parents: [00:46:22] which is hard. Depending on how old someone is, right, it would depend on if and how their family dynamics were. If they were even given words for emotions. In the first place, which, you know, if you raised yourself? No, I don't think there was a lot of talking about emotions.

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:46:43] No. And how interesting to come back to the point that we started with, why are we talking about these things? Why do we have these conversations to give people the words that they need?

Damaged Parents: [00:46:54] Most definitely. So three things tippers or tools that someone struggling can do today or in the future, just tips or tools to help them have a, maybe a less traumatic journey if possible.

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:47:10] Yeah. absolutely. I mean, here's the thing, we do our best with the knowledge that we've got. If somebody has the resources to get themselves a coach or therapist, because you shortcut your journey. So for me, it was years of learning. If I don't only found that right person that could have helped me, I could have shortcutted and I could have got back to my children sooner.

So I always recommend work with somebody because it will just shortcut your experience. If that's not something you're able to do, then, really start noticing And witnessing what your body needs. Check in with yourself every single day, check in, several times a day. What am I feeling right now?

What is my body trying to tell me? And it doesn't matter if you don't know, what happened just before I felt like this, what was I thinking? Okay. I was in this situation and yeah. My manager didn't get my email and okay. Yeah, I got out. I was thinking, I'm useless, I'm going to lose my job.

And it started catastrophizing and running away with me. And that created this physical symptom in my body. I would always start with the body because if you're not able to work through the thoughts with someone, you can always work on the body on your own. So definitely that noticing of emotions and feelings and how that equates, where it kind of maps out on your body.

The other thing, yeah, it's really hard just to say three, cause there's probably about, you know, so many that I'd like to share. But the other thing, if, there's nothing else that somebody is able to do, I would always recommend breath work. For me, breath work is my go to, and it is. Beautiful. And, if you're just feeling in a funk, if you're feeling sad, if you're feeling triggered, if any scenario and the only important thing to note with the breath work is, we need to be breathing out for longer than we breathe in.

So when we breathe in, we trigger the sympathetic nervous system. When we breathe out for longer, we're triggering a parasympathetic and. Why that's important is when we get triggered, we go into fight flight freeze or a appease and we have our trauma responses and we all do that. And we have one of those four responses.

When we activate our parasympathetic, we move from fight flight, freeze, and appease, and we go back into rest and digest. So it's really important again, just to get that body calm down because no amount of logical thinking or, trying to give ourselves a talking to is going to make any difference, because when we're triggered, our brain has flipped where, we're in that base part of our brain where pure emotion; emotion, cannot be calmed by logic.

At this point, there is no point in having any explanation. Any thoughts? Logical thinking is unhelpful, but if we can do the breath work and we can calm the body, then we can give ourselves enough space enough grace to then just reflect. Okay. What happened? Because you're then out of your fight and flight, you can turn the logical thinking back on.

You can reflect, okay, what just happened there? What was it? I was thinking, what was I believing about myself? What did I think was gonna happen? Okay. I was catastrophizing. Okay. I was, feeling like I wasn't good enough, but I don't have any evidence to say that's true. That was just my default.

That's a historical pattern that I've gone and we start witnessing stuff. But the breath work and enables that to happen.

Damaged Parents: [00:50:59] Yeah. And it sounds like just from even how you're talking about it, these are tools that you still use today that sometimes you're still triggered and sometimes you have to remind yourself.

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:51:10] Absolutely Angela. And this is the thing to remember. There is no point at which we are fixed because we were never broken in the first place. We're not broken, we're human. And every single human being is going to experience different challenges on different days. We are going to get triggered by somebody in our family, somebody out on the streets.

We don't know what's going to trigger us, but we do know that we're human and it's okay to be triggered. And just to have this toolkit that we can then, use when we need to is, that's wonderful.

Damaged Parents: [00:51:48] Fantastic. Thank you so much, Natasha, for being here, I have really. I enjoyed your journey and your story, and we will put your website and your contact information into the description on the podcast and on the website so that everyone can contact you.

I've really enjoyed hearing from you today. Thank you so much.

Natasha C. Dewhirst: [00:52:10] You are so welcome. Thank you for inviting me in and thank you for letting me speak to your listeners. And you know, for me that message that I just constantly want to get out there is that, we are not what happened to us in the past, we are not how we are contained physically. You know, we all have the opportunity to get to a place where we are happy and accepting and joyful, and it's just having those rights tools and the right language.

So hopefully we've shared that in our conversation today.

 Damaged Parents: [00:52:44] Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents.

We've really enjoyed talking to Natasha about learning to stand up for yourself. We especially liked. That she reminded us there's never a point at which we are completely fixed. To unite with other damaged people connect with us on instagram look for damaged parents will be here next week still relatively damaged see you then