Shownotes
A Black British-Caribbean woman diagnosed with HIV at 37 who told nobody for ten years - not her children, not her colleagues, not a single friend - and found her way back to her own body through yoga and Buddhism.
Summary
Louise Vallace grew up as one of the only Black children in a white Essex school, putting a tea towel on her head to pretend she had long flowing hair like the other girls. Her parents came from St Lucia during the Windrush era and were met with signs in windows: No Dogs, No Irish, No Blacks. Louise moved through school, the Caribbean, East London, and eventually into a senior career in local government - company cars, corporate cards, a visit from Tony Blair for a project she'd designed. On the surface, she'd made it.
In 2006, aged 37, divorced, with three children, she went for her first ever sexual health test. She'd been sterilised and didn't think she needed one. The nurse told her everything came back negative apart from one result. Louise went home, checked her will, and put a smile on her face when the children came back from school. The next day she rang her critical illness insurance. They didn't cover HIV.
For the next ten years, Louise told nobody. She was the only Black woman around the boardroom table at work, the only Black woman she could find in HIV community spaces, and now she was carrying a secret that intersected with every form of otherness she'd already spent a lifetime navigating. She took on what she calls masculine energy - became one of the boys - so she wouldn't have to tap into the femininity that nobody would hold. She dissociated from her body entirely. When someone later asked her where she felt sadness in her body, she didn't know.
The telling began with a journal. She wrote that she had something she needed to say to her children and couldn't find the words, and the tears fell onto the page. Her daughter flung her arms around her and said, why didn't you tell me? Her sons said, it's not that deep, Mum. She found yoga, Buddhism, and the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, and slowly learned to come home to her own body - dodgy knees, jittery hip, and all.
Key Moments
- [02:05] Essex, the tea towel, and being the only Black children - growing up visibly different, and parents who'd crossed an ocean only to find signs that said No Blacks
- [05:01] St Lucia to London - her mother arriving in a cotton dress to a city full of smoke and buildings, and the four years the family spent back in the Caribbean
- [07:33] Career and corporate cards - the senior role, the Blondie records, the respect campaign that brought Tony Blair to Newham, and the colleague who resented her for it
- [08:28] The first sexual health test at 37 - never having been tested, not thinking she needed to, and the moment the nurse said everything was negative apart from one
- [11:05] Death sentence - all she knew was that gay men got HIV and it had nothing to do with her. She checked her will that evening
- [12:50] The insurance call - ringing a critical illness policy she'd paid into for years, and being told they don't cover HIV
- [14:17] Ten years of silence - three children, a career, school governorship, and a secret she feared would destroy all of it if it surfaced
- [15:19] Dissociation - the complete detachment from her body, the masculine armour, and the question nobody could answer: where do you feel it?
- [17:39] Dating with a secret - the impossible opening line, and borrowing Jonathan Blake's observation: nobody leads with "I've got this killer virus coursing through my veins"
- [18:26] The journal and the children - tears falling onto the page, a daughter's arms, and two sons who said it's not that deep
- [20:28] Hyde Park and turning the script - telling a man on a first date she was living with HIV, then asking if he'd ever been tested. They married five years later
- [26:27] The absence of Caribbean women - not seeing herself in HIV spaces, and why shame in small island communities keeps Black British-Caribbean women invisible
- [31:23] Yoga, Buddhism, and coming home - learning to feel her body again through Thich Nhat Hanh, mindfulness, and the slow adventure of gratitude for a dodgy knee
Dedication
Louise remembers Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddhist monk whose podcasts she listened to on the way to work during her darkest days. She felt like he took her hand and helped her float to the surface.
About Louise Vallace
Louise Vallace is a Black British-Caribbean woman who was diagnosed with HIV in 2006 at the age of 37. She carried the diagnosis in silence for ten years. She is the host of the podcast Aunty Lou's House, a qualified yoga therapist, and an advocate for greater visibility of Caribbean women living with HIV in the UK.
Resources
- Aunty Lou's House - Louise's podcast
- Terrence Higgins Trust
- Positively UK
- National AIDS Trust
- The 2025–2030 UK HIV Action Plan
If you have been affected by the themes in this episode, support is available at tht.org.uk.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
Transcripts
Dan Hall
Welcome to 'HIV: The Morning After'. I'm Dan Hall. I'm a documentary producer and director. I've spent my entire adult life watching ignorance and prejudice play out around HIV. And frankly, I'm tired of it. And I'm sure many of you are too.
This podcast is an attempt to do something about that. By doing what I do best, interviewing people and letting them tell their own stories.
I can make these episodes, but I can't make people listen to them or find them on their algorithms. That beats down to you. Please rate, review and share 'HIV: The Morning After'.
Right then, let's get started.
::Dan Hall
ground opened up. That was in: ::Dan Hall
Not a friend, not her children. Not anyone at work. She carried it alone inside a life, but from the outside still looked extraordinary. What followed is a story about silence, about what shame does to a body, and about a woman who had to learn very slowly how to come back to herself. Luis follows. Welcome to 'HIV: The Morning After'.
::Louise Vallace
Hello, Dan. Thank you for having me.
::Dan Hall
It's an absolute pleasure for one podcaster to another.
::Louise Vallace
Haha, yes.
::Dan Hall
So then tell me, where did you grow up? What was the world like?
::Louise Vallace
I lived around quite a bit. I started off in Essex and the world was, very white. We were the only me, my brother and my sister were the only kind of black kids in in a white school. And, and after a few years, we moved to East London.
::Dan Hall
It's quite an ask of you to sum up an incredibly complex and long experience and a couple of sentences. But, you know, for people like me, a white male, can you give an idea of what it is like existing, saying a school as a child where you just feel permanently othered because you are in such a minority?
::Louise Vallace
Well, it was really difficult, you know, I mean, I was really young, you know, you start school early, like five, six, seven and, you in number one, you feel different. And it's just a feeling you get in your body of, difference. And then with your sights, you can see difference. I remember wanting to be like the other girls, so I used to put a tea towel on my head and just pretend I had, like, long, flowing hair.
::Louise Vallace
Just like the other girls in my class. It was really difficult. And my parents found it really hard. I mean, they they came from the, the Caribbean, and they were doing their best to provide, to work, to get through. And, so it was just really lonely.
::Dan Hall
nts were part of that kind of: ::Louise Vallace
Yeah, you're spot on. And, when they came to London, they were greeted with when they went to look for somewhere to rent in the windows a sign were no dogs, no Irish, no blacks. And that was pretty difficult because they hadn't experienced racism, you know, they didn't know they came from a Caribbean island where there wasn't racism in that way there, you know?
::Louise Vallace
Yeah. So it was it was just pretty difficult for them. And they told me stories about how tough it was. But yeah, I mean, they done the best that they could with the tools that they had at that time.
::Dan Hall
I can't imagine the jump coming from someone from the sunshine to this rainy, chilly place.
::Louise Vallace
Yeah. So I asked, so what was it like growing up? So she grew up, but she calls it like a savannah. It was like there was about five or 6 or 7 generations of her family lived on this massive, massive acres and acres and acres of land, nearly 40 acres or something. And there's lots. And there were surrounded by, you know, like coconut trees, palm trees, banana trees, every single vegetable you can think of.
::Louise Vallace
They had lakes and rivers that they'd catch fish and they'd bathe in the way that, you know, it sounded really idyllic. And then, and I said, so what was it like when you came to London? And she said, oh, like she said, first of all, this little cotton dress on. So she didn't realise it would be so cold.
::Louise Vallace
And then she said, oh, I saw these buildings. She said, I just saw these buildings and smoke coming out of these buildings, and I just didn't understand what was going on.
::Louise Vallace
So we did go back for a short while. We went to sit Lucia, mum and dad decided they wanted to go back and and see how it would be living out there. It didn't work out for mum in particular and then we came back to London, so we stayed there for about four years when I was in my teenage.
::Dan Hall
Goodness me, being a 13 year old is never easy, let alone doing it. When you're bouncing back to a country that you'd left a few years earlier.
::Louise Vallace
Yeah, yeah. And that was a little difficult age. And and feeling different. We had to pass these exams to get into the school. And, you know, I'd come from an environment in my I went to a convent in East London. So Angela's convent and then and in my class that took us in different classes. So like it depends on how intelligent you are.
::Louise Vallace
You were either in the top class or the bottom class. And the majority of the black girls were in the bottom class and I was with them. We were all clumped together in the bottom class, and that in itself sends a message.
::Dan Hall
I got to ask, what is a: ::Louise Vallace
Oh my God, don't get me started, Blondie. Now, a girl from a.
::Dan Hall
Low that was literally the first. That was the first record I ever bought was a Blondie record.
::Louise Vallace
Oh, I love Blondie. So it was all about Blondie. Adam and the ants. Oh, Musical youth passed the duck chip on the left hand side.
::Dan Hall
Oh. Me too. I think we are so clearly of the same gender race, but.
::Dan Hall
Now then, despite all your difficulties at school and your challenges, you went from schooling to go on to build an incredibly successful career.
::Louise Vallace
Well, it's high. I had, like, two company cars. I had, you know, been paid enough to just go on various holidays. I remember having a corporate card where, you know, I would lead all the pub clothes and, and it was me and all the guys because I had quite a lot of masculine energy at that time, you know, and, you know, I'd be out till two in the morning and all the guys.
::Louise Vallace
Oh God, oh God, I said, oh, come on, let's go. You know, I never around. So it was that and it was, you know, just lots of stuff around, just buying lots of stuff, having lots of stuff.
::Dan Hall
s, early: ::Louise Vallace
It's. That was early: ::Dan Hall
And then what happens.
::Louise Vallace
And then I, I get my teeth checked on a regular basis. I get, you know, smart, so I get all the tests that you do, you know, dental test and I got I've never had a sexual health test, but actually, I don't need it because, you know, clean. I don't even know what that meant in my head at that point.
::Louise Vallace
But, you know, I I'm not a bad person. I'm good, so I don't really I don't know, I'm just doing it to tick a box. I'll just tick a box because I've just never had it. And the reason that I didn't really need it, as far as I was concerned, was because I couldn't get, because I had been, sterilised.
::Louise Vallace
So I couldn't have any more children. I had three already, and I didn't want any more, so I was sterilised. I went to get yeah, I tried it and I didn't know what the procedure, the process was. I didn't know what to expect. I just thought, just do it. And then, I remember getting a phone call and they asked me to come into the clinic and.
::Louise Vallace
Doctor. Okay, you know. Fine. I'll just go in. They're going to tell me everything's fine. I had no concerns or worries whatsoever. And I walked in there and I sat down and the lady looked at me and she said, Louise, all your tests came back negative apart from one. And I just wasn't listening where she apart from one.
::Louise Vallace
And then she said, you know, I've got HIV. And I thought, what? And then my, you know, my, my head started to spin.
::Dan Hall
So there's no pre result counselling at this point. Just like we've kind of moved beyond that period where you I remember being sat down and regardless of what result you were given, you, you sort of had a five minute spiel about you, whatever the results is, do you have a support network, blah, blah, blah. They would go through the script and then deliver the result.
::Dan Hall
But I'm guessing maybe because we're quite far into combination therapy by now. That conversation kind of dried up, didn't it? It was just a matter of sitting down and being given the result home.
::Louise Vallace
Being honest, I remember it was just such a world wind, you know, it was just such a well-drained. I just remember sitting down saying, everything's fine apart from you, you've got HIV.
::Dan Hall
And what did that mean to you when you heard that? What did you think?
::Louise Vallace
At my that meant my life's over. I was just given a death sentence.
::Dan Hall
And I'm guessing you didn't know anything about combination therapy or the all that people were leading long and healthy lives by this point. None of that.
::Louise Vallace
No, no. All I knew was, gay men had, got HIV. It was nothing to do with me whatsoever.
::Dan Hall
What is it like to almost be invisible in the middle of your own story? Because that's what really strikes me as a white gay man. Hearing you speak about your experience of receiving a result, that you get, this result, which you fear I much would ostracise you from so much of the world. And yet some of those spaces where you might not be ostracised, you don't fit into those either.
::Dan Hall
So the intersectionality of isolation must be overwhelming.
::Louise Vallace
It was overwhelming. And, I mean, I was in shock. I went home that day and I went, I went straight home. I looked at my will just to make sure that everything was in order. And, I had to think about who's going to take care of my kid, and this is all by myself. Oh, quietly.
::Louise Vallace
And then when the kids came home from school, I put a smile on my face, and I welcomed them home. Now, the next day when they went to school, I had this insurance policy. If you can't work or if you've got a, you know, illness, they will give you some money. And I looked at a policy and from what I could work out, a hundred grand was coming my way because I, you know, this, this, this thing that I have and I called the insurance policy.
::Louise Vallace
I said, look, I would pay this policy for how many years? You know, I've been diagnosed with HIV. I want to cash it in. I want to make a claim. And they said, I'm so sorry, but we don't cover how you try to be. So that was another slap in the face. That was another, as far as I was concerned, you know, indicator that number one, I wasn't good enough.
::Louise Vallace
Number two, it's shameful. Number three, it's your own fault. Number four, you know, it just went on. This is a company that I've been paying to. So it was just. Yeah. And I remember a consultant saying to me, actually, the first time I've said this, but I remember a consultant saying to me, just look at it like cancer and just say, like, you're in remission.
::Louise Vallace
That's what she said. So then I'm thinking, fuck cancer, you know, cancer. And, you know, it was it was just overwhelming. I can't describe in words how awful it was. And so I done what I had done best for my whole life. I could just shut down and not say anything and keep my head down so that no one will win, will see me, will know about it with my.
::Louise Vallace
Life would be over. I had feek, I've got three kids and they were doing really, really well in, you know, in school they were popular. They had a great social life. They were, you know, I was a school governor and I couldn't I how and it wasn't just about my life. It was about their life. You know, what would people say if they knew that their mum had an.
::Dan Hall
I had guests on the show who spoken about them feeling a complete disassociation from their body. That sense of their brain almost no longer belongs in the shell to which it is living. Because the brain is going, this body is toxic. All this body is behaving in a way that I don't want it to.
::Louise Vallace
Actually what's happening? That's exactly what happened. I look back now and I can see PTSD and significant trauma. I can see all of that. And how it displayed. I went through a phase of, I stopped smoking, I stopped drinking, I just, you know, I found, meditation and mindfulness, I found Buddhism, I found yoga, and I just really, you know, tried to look at a different way to live, but off when I got used to it.
::Louise Vallace
And then when I got on my medication and things started to settle down and I knew that I was going to live, then I went back to the old ways. I went back on the boats, back on the facts, because then it was about dating, you know, so I kind of stopped to. Oh, and I kind of looked after myself with an eye.
::Louise Vallace
Then I kind of, you know, realise that everything would be. It was it was just it was really difficult to navigate alone, being a single parent, bringing up three children. I mean, I was divorced, bringing up three children and, you know, trying to hold down a career, managing loads of people at work, being a school governor so that my boys wouldn't get fucked about in the educational system.
::Louise Vallace
You know, it it was it was it was a lot, you know, and I didn't have time for me. I didn't have time to be a woman. I didn't have time to think about what I needed. So I took on this kind of more masculinity, of just being one of the boys. And then I wouldn't have to tap into my femininity because I would have no one to hold me, who would hold me if I tapped into.
::Dan Hall
That's a lot of carry. I mean, I'm I'm mindful of what Jonathan Blake says in his episode where he's speaking about going to the bars in East London, and he just wants to be around people, you know, he can't talk to anyone. This is in the sort of mid-eighties. And he says, what's supposed to be my opening line?
::Dan Hall
Hello, my name is Jonathan, and I've got this killer virus coursing around in my veins. And he's like, that's a shit chat up line.
::Louise Vallace
Man. Yeah, I it was really it was really difficult. The whole dating scene was just a bit of a nightmare. And I just got to a stage line and I said to myself, I need to tell my children at some point. I need to tell them they're getting older. You know, I can't not not tell them, you know.
::Louise Vallace
And, and I decided to get a coach and, one of the things that the coach said to me is that, you know, I should start journaling. And I said, I found journaling, and, you know, it's it's just write something. You just write stuff in this book. So, you know, and I started to do that. And then one day I wrote in this journal that there's something that I need to tell my children, and I just can't find the words to tell them.
::Louise Vallace
And I just started to cry, you know, and the tears were just falling down my face onto this journal. And, and I just got up and I went into my daughter's room and I just said to them, you know, oh, yeah, I've got something to tell you. They and they just, you know, flung their arms around me and said, oh, mom, you know, are you okay?
::Louise Vallace
Know, why didn't you tell me? And, you know, there was I say they because, that's their problem. And they were so, so supportive. And I told my sons that same day, and both of my son said, you know, it's not that deep, mum. You know, I'm fine out for our sake. I kept this for all these years, you know, and actually, they were right about it.
::Louise Vallace
I thought. I didn't know if my children were going to reject me. That's how I felt. I didn't know, I think, you know, so a shame inside of me. And if I told my mom my mum had suffered enough shame, how could I bring shame on her as well? And just everyone in the family, everyone's going to feel ashamed of me.
::Louise Vallace
And then. But then when I started telling, or disclosing, I realised that that shame was. It was my own shame. It was my own stigma. It was my own kind of thoughts. I just things started to change. And, you know, from there I really, you know, I gave up, you know, I became vegan and got back into yoga, learned to be a Yogi to, you know, really stuck.
::Louise Vallace
And I went on a diet. It was like a speed dating event and I thought is a bit of all right. And, we went out the following few days. He asked me out. We went out and, we had something to eat. And I'm thinking, actually is all right. You know, this geezer is kind of making me feel kind of like him.
::Louise Vallace
And then, you know, after lunch, we went out to Hyde Park and we went for a really long walk and sat on the grass, and I thought, I'll fuck. You know, I really like this guy. And then all of a sudden I just said, look, I'll. I'm living with HIV. But what about you? Have you been tested for anything?
::Louise Vallace
Because I'm all right. Like I'm good to go, mate, you know? But what about, you know, have you ever been tested? And I completely turned that dialogue around because it's true that I am all white. I look after myself. I can't pass HIV on, so I'm not concerned at all about what someone thinks about me. I'm concerned. Are you looking after yourself?
::Louise Vallace
And, we got married five years.
::Dan Hall
But before you met your partner, you were. How to navigate the world as an HIV positive black woman in a senior role in a predominantly white work space. Yeah, I'm very aware. A good friend of mine, she is a black woman and a senior business role, and she talks about how she has to be so aware of her tone, of how she says things because she says the room will switch off if they perceive as an angry black woman.
::Dan Hall
And that happens so, so quickly. So you are in the situation where you are in a senior role, you are a black woman. You are unusual in that room. But then you have this added reason, so to speak, for people to dismiss you.
::Louise Vallace
It was really, really hard. And I'm telling I was the only black woman. I was the only black person around the boardroom table, you know, I was and, and I've got three children to look after. So it was, I had a lot of pressure. I had a lot of pressure to fit in. And so having to change, I remember guys saying to me, once, you know, all when you're speaking, you know, you move your hands around to much, you need to control.
::Dan Hall
You move your.
::Louise Vallace
Hand.
::Dan Hall
I want what the fuck?
::Louise Vallace
Yeah. It's what I think is trying to say, you know, I should be a little bit more denier, more to mirror. And I remember once, it. At the time, it was a Prime minister, Tony Blair, when he was in power. And I had done some amazing work when I was in Newham. I worked for, Newham Council.
::Louise Vallace
And he found about who found out about the project that I had designed, developed and delivered and came to visit. And he wanted a one to just open, you know, what.
::Dan Hall
Was this project and why did you set it up?
::Louise Vallace
School. It's called Respect Campaign. And it was all about anti-social behaviour, how to reduce anti-social behaviour in no one. And it got to the stage where residents were writing into the local Newham Recorder, saying we're not going to pay our council tax unless we get in our area, which is the campaign that I delivered. So that's what they say about new at time.
::Louise Vallace
But, you know, dyslexics, you know, you think outside the box, you think differently. And so project, you know, programme management was an area that I really excelled in, you know, really changing things and making things kind of happen. And it happened and it got the attention of, you know, the government. And I remember talking to, Tony Blair's, secretary and I said, oh, right hand person.
::Louise Vallace
And I said, how come he found out about this? What made him come down to Newham and pay this visit? And she said it was a report. You know, I remember this guy. So, there was a meeting I had after the visit and this guy in the meeting, I was chairing this meeting, and this guy walked in the room and he said, how dare you, you know, what is it about you?
::Louise Vallace
Why didn't you? There were so many of us. I could have gone to that me. And I thought, what the fuck? You know, I've got. There was a lot of. There was a lot of people, that probably didn't like how successful I was. But the thing about it was, the reason I was successful was because I wasn't egotistical.
::Louise Vallace
As far as I'm concerned. I'm a mom of three trying to pay my flippin mortgage. That's it. I'm not out here trying to compete with you. I'm not out here trying to get one upmanship because I know I can't compete because I'm black and now I can't get one upmanship. I'm a woman, so I'm not here. I just want to do my job.
::Louise Vallace
But the thing about it, I was good at doing my job because I'm very balanced and down to earth, and I know how to kind of, you know, what with people and be respectful and, you know, so it worked and.
::Dan Hall
But there's quite a lot of absence in your story because you talk about being the only black woman around the management table. But you've also said in your research notes that within the world of HIV community spaces, you also saw an absence of black women. And that can't be. Yeah, being a mum and having to live your life and sort of always have to be the only one like you in the room.
::Louise Vallace
Yes. It's not easy and you know, there aren't. I don't see many women in the HIV space, black women in the HIV space. But let's just bring it down. Caribbean, black, British, Caribbean women. I see African women. I see white women. But you're not going to see many Caribbean and British Caribbean.
::Dan Hall
And is that's still the case now at all?
::Louise Vallace
Yes, it's still the case. All right. I literally on my podcast, I just interviewed someone, she was born in Jamaica, okay. And been in London for about 30 years or so. Like, not London, the UK, live with HIV. And I found her. Oh, my God, when you come, come and speak on my podcast about your story.
::Louise Vallace
There's not many of us Caribbean like. Oh, how.
::Dan Hall
And why do you think that is?
::Louise Vallace
Long, long? Because I think that, the shame is just too much. That's just that's just what I think is just, Caribbean islands are relatively small, so it's like, you know, little villages. Everyone knows everyone, you know, and the shame and the misogyny, you know, women, if you sleep about, you know, your, your, your loose or your, you know, the stereotypical kind of, you know, images of, of misogyny, is still there.
::Louise Vallace
I'm not saying I'm, I don't want to tie all Caribbean islands with the same trash. I don't want to say all men are misogynistic. I'm not saying that. So, yeah, it's not it's it's not just about HIV when it comes to the Caribbean. It's a queer community as well. You know, I think I think that I am really lucky to be born in the UK and pull up in the UK and brought up in London of all places, where it's so diverse when it comes to, you know, differences.
::Louise Vallace
Yes, it's still hard, but it's better in some places, in some ways, you know, not in all ways, but in some ways at least. I can go down Shoreditch High Street and see a little bit of, you know, diversity and creativity and women, you know, if men want to wear a pair of hot pants and pink socks, right, you know, but you can't you.
::Louise Vallace
Says, and I do that for all those people who, in living in fear, who forced it, who finds it really hard. And I just want, I well, I want to be the person that I wish I had when I found out. I wish that I saw a black, British born Caribbean woman with an accent like mine who just like me, who spoke similar to me.
::Louise Vallace
You know, just the average woman down Bethnal Green, the see themselves, you know, and it's not even just about black Caribbean, British women seeing themselves. It's just it's just just a person. Just this. Yeah. Just to be seen, you know, it's it's just so hard and and it's ongoing. You know, I've, I've come really far done. But the work doesn't stop on myself in relation to the shame.
::Louise Vallace
It still comes not because of HIV, but just because. Am I good enough as do I sound alright? Did that person think that I said the wrong thing? Oh, why did I say that? How? Why did I sound like that? Why did I, why did I that kind of shame and not feeling enough?
::Dan Hall
Now? We spoke earlier about how in the period after diagnosis, there's a real sense of disassociation between the mind and the body, that sense that the body is almost turned on you. Or maybe it's something that you just don't understand anymore because it doesn't fit with your brain. When and how did you come home to your body?
::Louise Vallace
Yoga. That's how I came home to my body and meditation. That's how I came home to my body. I kept everything in my head, I dissociate. I didn't feel anything in my, from my neck down. When I started, practising mindfulness, and I started to explore Buddhism, I started to understand, so everything made kind of made sense to me, and I started to, notice.
::Dan Hall
More. And what was it like coming back to your body? How did you find it?
::Louise Vallace
It's a wonderful adventure. An absolutely amazing adventure. I'm getting older now, so, my body's changin. My knees ache, my hips gone. Depending how I sleep. I've got a neck. And, If I wasn't mindful, these things would make me really angry and annoyed. And I would compare myself to others similar age to me. And, you know, but coming home to my body means I understand and I really respect my body so much now.
::Louise Vallace
I give gratitude to my legs, to my feet, to my my dodgy knees, to my jittery hip, to my neck, my shoulders, the tension that gets held in my jaw. You know, I rub it now and I know it's it now. I remember the first time someone said to me, you know when you upset where you feel it in your body.
::Louise Vallace
I said, I don't know. You said, it's your belly, I don't know. Is it in your heart? Where do you feel it? Where do you feel it if I don't know. So asking me that because now I feel like I'm a failure because I don't know where I feel it. So I've been on this journey of discovery, of discovery and sin, and, and it's helped me so much because now I value rest.
::Louise Vallace
Now, very conscious when the voice in my head says, you know, you're being lazy, get up and get on the bike and get get out of love. Well, actually, my my book is talk. It's.
::Louise Vallace
After the person next to the mat. But yoga is a practice. It's not, it's not, it's not a contest. It's not a competition. And and that's what yoga therapy really helps you to understand. You know, it's it's not about being competitive. We are all so different. And our bodies are so different. So how can alignment all be the same?
::Louise Vallace
You know, so I was just wonderful. Wonderful getting to know, getting to understand my body in ways that I, I never did. And I'm still learning and I'm still, you know, it's it's it's on.
::Dan Hall
Nothing lose. We come towards the end of our conversation. And this is where I create a moment of remembrance, a sort of audio version of the eighth scroll. And I like to take us to that garden that was in the grounds of the London Lighthouse, and would then come to you and say, who would you like us to spend a few minutes remembering with you?
::Louise Vallace
All right. Well, this is where my heart's gone. My heart has gone straight to a Buddhist monk called Nahum tick. Nahum. And when I was in my darkest days trying to swim to the to the top, and I could feel like I was drowning, I felt like he would take my hand and help me float to the top.
::Louise Vallace
I used to listen to his podcasts on the way to work, on the way home from work, and I just learned so much about how to suffer less. So he died about, I think, three years ago, and my heart just went.
::Dan Hall
So then, Lou, if you could write a postcard with a message to the world, what would a site?
::Louise Vallace
It would say you.
::Louise Vallace
We are all connected. And you're my deeply.
::Dan Hall
And of course, I'll provide links to Louis fantastic podcast, Aunty Lou's House at the show. Notes.
::Dan Hall
And that brings us to the end of this episode of HMV. The morning after. My sincere thanks to Louise Wallace for bringing 19 years of silence and everything that came after into this episode. Thank you very much, Lou.
::Louise Vallace
Oh, thank you, thank you so.
::Dan Hall
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