In this episode, I share a personal story about dealing with a flare-up of my autoimmune condition, Ulcerative Colitis.

Despite being in great physical shape from regular training, my health was suddenly taken away, leaving me in severe pain, weakness and a dark mental state. I discuss the importance of radical acceptance, self-compassion and listening to your body's needs during such challenging times.

While nothing lasts forever, having processes to get through the lows is crucial.

Get in touch with Sal

If this episode has caught your attention and you wish to learn more, then please contact me. I offer a free 20 min call where we can discuss a challenge your facing and how I may be able to help you.

Key Learnings:

1) Don't buy into the hype that you can be "bulletproof" - everyone can experience setbacks with their health or circumstances beyond their control.

2) When your health is compromised, practice radical acceptance rather than resistance, which only causes more suffering.

3) Be self-compassionate. As a man, I've struggled with feelings of weakness and shame, but self-kindness is vital.

4) Truly listen to your body's signals and intuition about what it needs, whether it's rest, gentle foods, etc.

5) Appreciate that difficulties are cyclical and temporary - "nothing lasts forever" is an empowering perspective.

Show Notes:

0:00 - 2:00 Intro and background on being in great physical shape initially

2:00 - 5:00 Health crash from ulcerative colitis flare-up and dark mental state

5:00 - 7:00 Importance of acceptance over resistance, self-compassion

7:00 - 9:00 Listening to the body's needs, cycles of health/challenges

9:00 - 10:00 Currently feeling better, offer to connect on autoimmune issues

Welcome to Mindset, Mood and Movement.

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A systemic approach to human

behaviour, performance and wellbeing.

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Sal Jeffries: Hello and welcome.

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Today I'm talking about what

happens when your health is taken

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away from you for various reasons

and perhaps different ways.

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I want to share a story which is personal

to me and it might vibe with you.

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Now, I invite you to picture this.

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I've got to go back

like a couple of months.

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It's nice and simple.

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Two months before this

event, I am in good shape.

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I'm really training

well, so I'm in the gym.

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I'm probably doing like between

three to five days a week.

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I've got lots of stuff going on.

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Got some cardio works and swimming.

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And strength is going up.

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Fitness is going up.

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I love it.

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You know, and I'm not a spring

chicken as I've said to many

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of you fellow listeners before.

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I'm 52.

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So it's an utter privilege to

be able to move and play perhaps

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like I did when I was young.

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And the thing about fitness, when

you go to the gym and you're always

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trying to get, better, you're

going to lift some more weight.

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You might move faster and

that feeling is, it's magic.

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Now, of course, it's hard work,

of course, but the feeling is

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magic and that's why I do it.

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So it'd be going really, really well.

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And I'm trained all the time.

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And it was the start of the year.

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Now, I had this sneaking dark cloud in

the mind that, something might go wrong.

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And the something that might go

wrong is an autoimmune condition,

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which I've had for 40 years.

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So I've lived with this, condition.

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it's a part of me.

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It's a part of my fabric.

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I'm going to tell you little

bit more about that in a moment.

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But so there I am going along thinking,

this winter I might be all right.

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You know, I think I might

be a get away with this.

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So the mindset in health and fitness

area as with business is of course, it's

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growth, it's things are getting better.

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We are improving and that's all great.

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And what no one tells you on

Instagram or posts in their lovely

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feed is when it all goes to hell.

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And that's exactly what happened

about after this six week window.

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My super hard training was going.

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It was all feeling great.

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everything was good.

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And the autoimmune

condition snuck back in.

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Now, I have this thing called ulcerative

colitis, which essentially means my

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colon, digestive tract will ulcerate.

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And if you could imagine, I won't get too

much into the, the gruesome, but if you

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imagine, if you like, you cut your skin on

the outside and you just kept rubbing it,

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of course, that internal system's getting

aggravated and it can get worse and worse.

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What happens.

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Sometimes is it's okay, and I've got

a few meds that can help me steady it.

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I've got certain practices I do that

keep it all at a steady, calm place.

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However, I had what is

called a big flare up.

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and a crash.

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And of course, to look at me from the

outside, it's yeah, this guy's pretty

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fit, he's active, good for him, lucky him.

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But actually what people don't see is

when I'm not at the gym nearly two weeks,

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when I'm on the floor, it's pain, my

mind has gone into a very dark place.

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I feel very bad about myself.

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and of course, as a man, there's layers

of stuff that come up around weakness,

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feeling shameful, feeling like all

the work I've put in is gone away.

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anyone's got that feeling, particularly

my fellow male, listeners, you'll

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know it when you just feel that bad.

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And of course this is not

something to put on Instagram.

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that's not what we do.

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And even if you do, people

aren't going to be interested.

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So I want to share on this podcast

because this is more of a personal space

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where if you're listening, you care.

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And if you're listening, you

might have something which

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you're wanting help on as well.

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So there I was in this crash, horrible

place, weak, sore, struggling, you

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know, I'm still running a business

and that's, already challenging.

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And this isn't as bad as it can get.

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This is just an episode

and I've had a lot worse.

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The moral of this is to really

understand that you can't beat nature.

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You can't beat everything.

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There's no such thing

as a bulletproof mind.

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It's a silly soundbite.

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I know we like to say it on social

and that, but everyone is breakable.

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Things can go wrong.

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And what I've learned is that rather

than hoping things don't go wrong,

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rather than hoping that your training

schedule doesn't fall apart, that your

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business is not taking a low point

because of various circumstances, It's

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to understand, to really understand that

things work in sort of spirals and flows.

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So, if you have your health taken away

from you, you've been ill, injured, you've

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got a condition like me, something like

that, then it's about understanding,

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well, what do we do in that chapter?

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And my experience of many years of

being with this condition, and by

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the way, resistance doesn't work,

it's just crazy, it makes it worse.

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So my understanding is utter acceptance.

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It doesn't mean I don't want him.

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It doesn't mean I like

him, but acceptance.

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It's really interesting.

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This, in a way it's radical acceptance.

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It's yeah, I'm in pain.

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I'm suffering.

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I can't do what I want to do right now.

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And it hurts.

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But there's something really beautiful

and powerful about radical acceptance

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because, of course, that reduces stress.

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It stops the resistance.

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And as I've said many times, my dear

listener, resistance is suffering.

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And of course, then you get

into a place of, okay, well,

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what do we need to do with this?

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So my, work was acceptance,

first and foremost.

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lots of meditation.

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The right foods.

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I can barely eat certain foods at all.

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So pretty much eating plain rice

for a week is all I can handle.

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And just staying as calm as can be and

realizing that, you know, this will pass.

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I've been here before many

times and it will pass.

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And then coming back out of that,

that hole, clawing your way back up.

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Often, imagine it like you're walking

along, may picture this, you're walking

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along in a forest and there's trees and

it's all lovely and the sun's cascading

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through and as you're walking along, you

think, Oh, life is good and you don't

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see big hole that's covered with some

leaves and bracken and they slide down

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and you crash and you hurt yourself.

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That's what it's like.

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And of course, if you're at the bottom

of a deep hole, you've got to claw

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yourself up and it's muddy and it's

nasty and you're clawing on those

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walls and you can see the light.

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ahead of you.

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It's not with you, but it's ahead of you.

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You've got to get your hands

dirty and you've got to find

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your way out of that hole.

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But when you do, then you realize that

you can get back on your pathway again.

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So as our analogy of walking

through, or metaphor perhaps, of

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walking through the woods, you're

back on that path, but not ever.

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under the misapprehension that this

will magically never happen again.

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And I think that's my lesson I wanted

to share with you is that these things

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happen, whether it's an accident,

an illness, a condition, something

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is going to go wrong at some point.

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If there's no space for it,

you're going to be in trouble.

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If you make space for it, so it's

not sitting around in a well of

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anxiety and fear, that's just pain

that has not yet come, as they

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used to say in the Yoga Sutras.

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But it's realizing that if something

happens, you need to find a way.

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And the biggest way I've

found is self compassion.

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which has been hard for me because

that's not always come easy to me.

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But self compassion, radical

acceptance, and then really

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listen to what your body needs.

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And and this is a thing to cycle it

back to the sort of the fitness element,

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which I absolutely love, is that when you

truly listen to your body, not in some

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kind of esoterical way, but in literally

what are the sensory feedback systems?

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What am I getting?

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What's my intuitive sense?

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What is in the what we'd often call

the subconscious mind of the body.

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There is information, and it might be

like, I need to sleep right now, or

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I need a hot water bottle, or I need

to eat gentle food, whatever it is.

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The same goes when you're in the

gym, running, triathlons, whatever

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it is you do, that you are listening

to the body, even though you might

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be pushing and pushing those edges.

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You're never abusing it,

you're always working with it.

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And that's what I've found is one

way out of the dark hell that I have

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to go through from time to time when

my health crashes and it feels like

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everything's taken away from me.

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I'm like the metaphorical Samson with

hair, which is quite funny by the

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way because I don't have any hair.

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But Samson had his hair cut

off, lost all his strength and

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that's exactly what I feel like.

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But what's interesting is

that strength comes back.

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If we have obviously the right ways

and systems and hopefully people

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around us to, to bring that back.

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So my dear listener, a tale

of don't buy into the hype.

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We all suffer.

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We all struggle.

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We can all go down sometimes.

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But the most important thing is what do

you do when you're down on the ground?

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How do you find self compassion,

acceptance and the right processes

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to help you, to get you through?

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Because nothing lasts forever.

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And a great old master

used to say that to me.

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It's remember how dark it ever gets.

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Nothing lasts forever.

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And it's such an important point,

particularly if we're struggling.

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I'm delighted to say that I'm feeling a

whole lot better in this last few days.

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Hence the reason for this episode

today to share a little brightness.

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The story has come out.

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I'm walking down that

metaphorical pathway in my forest.

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Again, the light is glimmering

and all is good for now.

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dear listener, if you are struggling

with a health issue, or an injury

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or something like that, I hope

you can take solace in this.

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If you have an autoimmune condition,

particularly the one I have, you're

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very welcome to reach out to me.

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I get my thoughts.

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I work with this a lot in the

psychological, emotional space, and I've

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learned a lot of my, on my own journey.

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So if you'd like to know more, reach

out on, whichever platform or social you

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have seen this or got to this, podcast

on, and until the next time, take care.

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Outro: Thank you so much for listening.

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If you enjoyed the

episode, please subscribe.

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And if a friend would benefit from hearing

this, do send it on to them as well.

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If you would like to get in touch

yourself, then you can go to my website.

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Which is Sal Jeffries dot com,

spelt S A L J E F F E R I E S.

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Sal Jeffries dot com.

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Hit the get in touch link and there

you can send me a direct message.

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If you'd like to go one step further

and learn whether coaching can help

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you overcome a challenge or a block

in your life, then do reach out and

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I offer a call where we can discuss

how this may be able to help you.

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Until the next time, take care.