Ask Ell #ASKELL

Today I have the pleasure of speaking to Peter Reading who is using his historical struggle with alcoholism to help other people to overcome their own struggles.

‌ From a troubled childhood to a life lost in addiction, join us on a journey of transformation.

In this podcast, we'll explore one man's path from isolation to recovery, discovering his true superpower along the way. Through ups and downs, arrests, and failed attempts, he eventually finds a new purpose in life.

Walk with us as he shares how nature and sobriety became his saviours, and how he now strives to help others find their own way to healing and self-discovery.

Experience the power of resilience, redemption, and the incredible transformation from a life of despair to a life filled with purpose.

This is Walking With A Reason

To read Pete's full story follow the link below:

https://www.revitalizeclinic.co.uk/2023/09/04/walking-with-a-reason-petes-story/

Suffer from anxiety? Mind racing like a hamster wheel?

And that’s without bringing in the negative thoughts that go around and around like a broken record.

Anxiety is our brain’s way of protecting us from what might happen… but something has gone wrong. The absence of a threat should correct our brain but it doesn’t. This is called prediction error.

Ie “I’m concerned people are looking at me… no-one is looking at me… I am now calm” turns into “I’m concerned people are looking at me… I’m concerned people are looking at me… I’m concerned…” etc

Writing for 5 minutes when you feel anxious, concerned, depressed enables you to observe your thoughts rather than suffer in their grasp. It takes you from being in a burning building, so observing that burning building on a TV screen in safety.

In this video I explain how I have been able to restore sense and calmness to my mind by spending 5mins on the same laptop I’m using to write this email.

Have a watch and let me know what you think by commenting / replying to this post

Our understanding of pain is changing in a fantastically productive way. 80 years ago, if you would have died, the most likely cause would have been a work place accident, poisoning, a bacterial infection and other conditions which you had no control over.

However, times have changed.

Most of us will die of deaths that could have been delayed, and many of us live with complaints that we must be empowered over if we want to stand the best chance of recovery. Diabetes, heart disease, cancer and yes, chronic pain. Thankfully, there is a growing shift in approach to healthcare.

I talk to Danny Miller who has a fantastic story. After graduating as an osteopath, due to his frustration of not knowing enough to help his patients, Danny started to study to become a clinical health psychologist.

Danny’s understanding of pain, desire, motivation, perspective is mind blowing and he also shares the desire to empower more people over their health outcomes.

Give the interview a watch, and let me know what you think

My experiences of dating outside my race have been fairly predictable; give it enough time and someone is going to say something fairly inappropriate and quite possibly overtly offensive. In fact, if I were to pick a family to marry into which I suspected would be more likely to offend me on a regular basis with their sheltered perspective, ridgid processes and isolated culture, it would probably be the Royal Family.

So I have to admit, when people were shocked and emotionally moved by Meghan and Harry’s interview on Oprah, I was shocked. How could people have expected them not to experience the turmoil they have experienced? How could the British public not have recognised the racialised language; the allusion to stereotypes etc. To me, it was obvious. Reading between the lines to understand true bigoted belief is a common practice, being a minority in the UK. So how, when the hardship of Meghan’s situation is so obvious, did people miss it?

I wasn’t shocked at all. Was this due to me becoming desensitised by my own experiences; so much so that I expected racism, classism, bigoted attitudes etc? Perhaps. And by speaking to a few people I eventually realised that many of the offensive rhetoric which has been sent Meghan’s way had actually been missed by a lot of people.

But on deeper exploration, I realised that Meghan and Harry’s predicament is a perfect microcosm to display life as a black person in the UK.

Rachel Greer opens up about her experience at Revitalize

To those who have and haven’t been to the clinic, it may seem like a treatment is just the obvious mix of joint manipulation, massage, a quick chat and some exercises. But it often is much more complex than this.

Rachel thought she might never dance again. She has a chronic hamstring strain which often stopped her from doing anything at all.

She’s now pain free, dancing as often as she liked and I wanted to interview her about her experience. We cover

1. What worked now but didn’t before

2. Mistakes that I made during her management

3. Her advice for others suffering with chronic pain

Listen to Rachel’s story and give her a follow on instagram at @rachie_macdonald

www.revitalizeclinic.co.uk 

What does death mean to you? Is it the end of a journey, the beginning of another? I would be interested to hear your perspective so please let me know.

Go to www.revitalizeclinic.co.uk/blog for more posts

I had a fairly early and close encounter with death when I was 16 years old.  A great friend of mine passed. It drastically changed the way I viewed life thereafter. And I suppose this can be a good thing. It greatly increased the value which I attribute to time and makes me question to this day, if I could be spending that time doing something better?

I had the opportunity to speak with James from the Art of Dying. Their award winning podcast helps people to approach their death with control and dignity. Give it a listen. I would be interested in your thoughts

When experiencing bouts of depression, anxiety, bereavement; or maybe your personality disorder or bipolar has taken a turn for the worse; it can seem that there is no way out. You’ve tried everything, right?

Well, sometimes you need a hand to guide you out of the darkness. Our gravesend based counsellors and psychologists would love to hear about your struggles. It will at least give you a chance to express how you feel to open ears, with no judgement

Message us or give us a call and we’ll book you in for a free over the phone consultation to begin with. It will help us to get to know each other before you embark on your journey to recovery

#mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #anxiety #selfcare #depression #selflove #love #health #wellness #mentalhealthmatters #motivation #therapy #mentalillness #mindfulness #healing #fitness #psychology #recovery #wellbeing #ptsd #life #loveyourself #meditation #inspiration #positivevibes #positivity #happiness #quotes #bhfyp

I wanted to explore my experiences as a black man, growing up in the UK. And I have done so through reading history and attending therapy to ease the pain or at least better understand certain experiences. If you’re called a monkey or a nigger enough times, it certainly leaves a mark somewhere.

But until now, when having this conversation which is rarely ever instigated by myself, I am met with eyes that so quickly glaze over. Why would your eyes glaze over when someone speaks about something which affects them so greatly? And such a great source of pain?

I had one admittance of truth whilst having this conversation with a patient the other day

“I feel guilty” they said

This small admittance of truth is in my opinion such a great hint as to what lies under the tip of the iceberg. This guilt. This sense of ownership of the sins of the past is experienced by many British and American people of European descent, knowingly or unknowingly.

What a farce. What a fallacy. Guilty for what? During the height of the British Empire, 25% of Britains didn’t even have enough food to maintain a consistent calorie intake. Diarrhea and pneumonia were common causes of death. You wouldn’t have lived long enough to die from your first heart attack. If you were middle class you might live to 45

My family were on the plantations with scars on their backs as whips tore into their flesh. If of English heritage, your family were likely in the workhouses in more favourable conditions yet still not great.

But your ancestors were surely closer to mine than they were to the aristocracy.

The greatest lie that the working class have ever been told is that "as long as you’re better than a nigger or an immigrant, you are somebody”. So you look down on the people who are trying to make something better for themselves rather than look to banish the hand so firmly placed in your chest, stopping you from progressing any further.

You look to the imaginary ball and chain around your ankle rather than the very real knife in your throat.

So let’s now leave this fallacy behind that black progress takes from white progress. Let’s stop seeing black and white as being on this spectrum of push and pull where if one side wins, one side loses. Let’s accept that we’re different yet equal and let’s explore my experiences of being black and British for the hope of helping both of us rid ourselves from a legacy of inequality that has been perpetrated from the top down.

But what is actually wrong with me?

And I understand the question; ‘what is actually wrong with me?’. You want to “know your enemy”. But why do you think your enemy can be seen? If you were to take an MRI of your eye whilst you were looking at a sunflower, do you think you could see a flower on the MRI?

No of course not. So why do you think that by getting an MRI on your lower back, you will see what is causing the pain?

The psychobiological model for psychiatry has been argued as being obsolete by Suman Fernando

We are greater than our anatomy, individual chemicals and compounds

So why do we insist on diagnosis and “powerful” interventions

Why do we insist on scans, surgery and blood tests; diagnosis and prognosis despite no evidence showing this is worthwhile and that it may in fact be harmful? Filling our creative minds with a threatening image or description is never good, as anyone who has googled their symptoms will know.

Because we are:

• curious by nature
  
• often passive by nature
  
• have been fed a false, pacifying ideology of pain and suffering
  

Humans are curious, we want answers. But we are often very passive. Every invention we pride has made things easier. A dog would invent a computer with a treadmill attached. We instead invent the remote control. The less effort the better

It’s the same with relief from pain; mental or physical. If you can pop a pill, have a drink, have an operation, injection etc. you’re all good! You don’t even question the logic behind cutting into a painful area to reduce the pain? Just God forbid you have to actually put the effort in to reduce the pain

The Truth

The truth is that pain is complicated but the mind and body in all their complexity have one key advantage. They adapt. Endurance and strength athletes have a far greater tolerance to pain than inactive individuals.

Exercise based rehab has shown to be superior to purely manual therapy treatment for patients (BEAM trials 2004)

Exposure therapy has been a key pillar of CBT, exposing an individual to manageable levels of a threat so they adapt.

And once they adapt they can be moved onto the next stage of rehab or therapy.

The Guide

The issue is, to me, there seems to be a cry out for someone to take the pain away and I get it. It’s like when you’re a child and you hurt your knee, your mum or teacher might wet a towel and dab the sore spot and the pain goes. There are so many examples of insignificant interventions causing pain to drop.

The issue is when we rely on something other than ourselves. 20 visits with the chiropractor, another bottle of wine, another month on pain killers

You don’t need a hero. You’re the hero. You need a guide

Find someone who empowers you. Someone who can make you the hero of your story. Become someone who can rise in triumph against the ill fortune of physical and mental pain.

Stop looking for someone to take responsibility for your own deconditioning to trauma. Find someone who will help you to eventually look at what caused you to wince, or hide, or grimace… and be comfortable with it

If you need to find your guide then contact the myself at the Revitalize Clinic 6000 clients in and we’re helping people to create lives they love.

Socialist Ideals

There seemed to be a lack of classist tension in Ancient Egypt. Far from Feudal Europe with social upheaval being very rare (C.Diop, The African Origin of Civilisation) .

Their society was extremely wealthy, pledging us much as the equivalent of £8million worth of Gold to build their temples but every. However the Monarchy was responsible for the success of commerce. They also insured the people were well fed and inherited a house.

This would be the equivalent of a home and nutritious food being your birthright, living in the UK. Not 30 years of debt to own a flat. You would be given a home and nutritious food would be made plentifully available to you (C.Diop, The African Origin of Civilisation). And this was in pursuit of an ethical, not an economic ideal. Ethics held the greatest currency, not wealth

The Monarchy, in their death would have the Declaration of Innocence inscribed in their tombs. We read things such as, Bakhenkhonsu, High Priest (12th century BC) "I did not do islet (evil in his house); I judged the poor like the rich and the strong like the weak”. If they did not live to the Ethical Ideals of Maat, their Ka (soul) would be destroyed in the Duat (afterlife) after it was weighed against the weight of a feather.

The point to explore here, is what would society be like if ethics carried as much weight as currency?

Triumph over evil (Maat vs Isfet)

It was each Egyptian’s duty to banish Islet (evil) from the land by spreading Maat (good, order) and it is in Egypt that we see the first detailed hero story emerging. We can see this in the form of Horus. But the triumph of good over evil is equally seen as a form of Introspection. Within us we have a balance of good and evil and it is our duty to exercise good order over the chaotic evil that resides within us

This has translated into the Abrahamic religions but in Christianity, many will claim to be practicing but will assume forgiveness if we even superficially repent.

Many people who are practicing followers of religion also practice passivity to save themselves from eternal torment. However Maat encourages active participation in banishing Islet from the land.

Mythology (origin of good and evil

In ancient Egypt we see a creationist story which tells the story of the universe into being as well as our own consciousness from unconsciousness

Atum (the uruboros, the abyss, the chaotic disorder of good, evil, female and masculine) provides 4 key figures

• Osiris (the old King)
  
• Isis (the wife of the old king)
  
• Set (the evil brother of Osiris, precursor for Seitan)
  
• Horus (Osiris’s son who defeats Set to re-establish order)
  

Horus (eye of Horus) represents consciousness (J Peterson, Maps of Meaning; Erich Neumann, The Origins and History of Consciousness) and he can only see Set’s evil because he can look into the abyss of chaos and evil and see it for what it is. He is not blinded by tradition and complacency like his father but also ourselves

We are all guilty of lying to ourselves in moments of complacency. Many times we look away from the reality of chaos and hide in our unconscious states rather than stare into the abyss and do what is needed of us. Know Thyself is an antidote to this. Do not lie to yourself

There are many theories that this is who the story of Jesus is based on. A deity who can look into the abyss of evil and chaos and confront it with good (Ma'at)

Today we have Niki Mahon is a friend and of whom, I am a fan.

From a young age Niki has thrived in environments such as dance and art, showing from an early age, creative flare. After completing a degree in graphics design from Bournemouth University, Niki quickly set up a side hustle, selling finely sourced jewellery online.

Over the years, she has been a finalist in 3 KEIBA (kent excellence in business awards) for her excellence in business and has also featured in beauty publications and Bhangara music videos.

A business is like an iceberg. There are greater depths to what you see. And when the line between the business and the person is blurred, the depth grows deeper. 

I had a great time discussing today with Niki, 

01:43 General Introduction

03:00 Niki expresses the conflict she felt age 23
She was a qualified graphics designer but didn't feel it was her calling. She had to make a move. Niki decided business was her move. But how she came to this decision took introspection and a drive to leave the comfortable working environment she had found

06:50 Cutting the Emotional Attachment to Instagram
Niki now has over 90,000 instagram followers but when she initially hit 10,000 she deleted her account. She felt embarrassed at the time and didn't feel people would take her seriously at work. How did this shape her perception of social media? How does that manifest itself today?

Do people feel entitled when contacting her; do they demand attention and a response? Niki discusses how this affects her

14:15 How much don't people see?
I used the metaphor of an iceberg. Niki explains how much people don't see of the background workings of her business. But she also gives insight in as to how social media is becoming more transparent for the better. It gets tiring keeping on a mask that doesn't always represent how you feel

16:20 What would have happened if you didn't change?
When Niki was 23, the family of her spouse at the time put undue stress on her to fit a mould she didn't affiliate with. She needed something for herself to be proud of... but what would have happened if the pressure to change wasn't as great? And is this pressure to fit a mould felt by many second or third generation immigrants? 

23:52 The pressure of the Entrepreneurial Pop Culture
Is everyone meant to be an entrepreneur? And do they come in different shapes and sizes? Niki expresses that you don't necessarily need to go ALL IN straight away. I agree

28:05 What are your motivations going forward?
Niki expresses her motivation; what she's running towards and what she's running from

34:15 Niki flips the script onto me. Know Thyself
I express how early experiences of racism ignited my fire to prove myself to the world and leave no stone unturned

40:38 Could the drive have been extinguished
There are many people who live in chronically oppressive situations. Can these situations extinguish the greatest parts of our personalities if she sit there long enough?

42:45 "John lost his wife and sold his house. Next week he was a billionaire"
We discuss how the glorification of these often fictional events are harmful for entrepreneurialism

44:25 Word Associated Game
Popularised by Sigmund Freud, it's a simplified version that shows what people's minds associate with different words. Niki had some great ones

End

Thank you for listening! And if you have any suggestions for future podcasts, please let me know!