The Library

Join us for an entertaining and enlightening tour of what has been the most enlightening parts of the process for those amazing people striving to be (UN)Broken, living their lives authentically, magnificently and totally unapologetically. 

Starting with some tips of what collectively have helped the (UN)Broken tribe members the most in their unique, individual and bespoke journeys of awareness, acceptance and amazement. It is a common trait when feeling broken to feel that we are not as human as the next person, not the same, however this episode seeks to break that taboo and show how human we all are and our paths may be different but in essence we all have the same fears, un-comfortability and worries. 

Key Insights From This Episode: 

  • The only person that we have control over is ourselves. 
  • I encourage people to actually start to cultivate the art of resting because we don’t get enough. 
  • I tell people that doing nothing is doing something. We never, ever are actually doing nothing. 
  • The brain doesn’t differentiate between good or bad. It doesn’t. And it also doesn’t differentiate between true and not true. The brain is not any kind of referee over things. Its job is just to keep us alive. 
  • It takes at least eight weeks for a new neural pathway to start developing in the brain. Eight weeks, 56 days. 
  • They have experienced the battle between “now is okay, and I’m going to give okay up for what is in the future, which I don’t even know what that is”. The uncertainty of it all. I have to live with the anxiety, I have to live with these unfamiliar feelings to something that isn’t really even that tangible anymore. 
  • Learn how to say no to anything that doesn’t feel right. That doesn’t seem right. That doesn’t sound right. That doesn’t make you feel right. Learn how to say no.

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE OF THE (UN)BROKEN PODCAST HERE

About Our Host 

Dr Rachel Taylor 

drrachel@drracheltaylor.co.uk  

Dr Rachel Taylor is a neuroscientist with decades of experience exploring, discovering and solving everyday challenges faced by many, as well as listening to and telling the stories of people she comes across in her endeavour to show difference is good, trauma is endemic and joy is connection. She started UnBroken as she wanted to highlight that the system is broken not people and uses the UnBroken podcast to share her learnings, honest conversations and words of wisdom with the UnBroken Tribe of listener. 

About UnBroken  

UnBroken is founded upon the belief that the environment in which we were born, grew in, live in, work in, play in and rest in has a huge impact on how well we believe we are and how well we perform. Wellbeing and optimal human performance are not simply about the absence of disease, they are about the ability to live purposefully, intentionally, joyfully and freely.   

UnBroken provides a range of supportive online resources including a podcast, blog, apothecary and monthly online membership for people who dare to be different, are open to possibilities and want a different pathway to their own version of success. 

Transcript 

Hi, everybody. Rachel here. Welcome to the Unbroken Podcast. Today I’m really excited because today I’m going to share with you the Enlightening Eight, which is what current Unbroken souls have told me have helped them the most into creating the life that they want, getting greater autonomy over themselves and really taking control of how healthy they are, how well they are, the decisions that they make.  

So these are the top eight as decided by the Unbroken souls. So I hope there’s something here for everybody.  

So we’re going to start with number one on the list, only trying to change yourself, not others.  

This is something that is huge. Often when we are unhappy in our lives, we look at everything around us, all the people around us, and we think, “oh, if only they would be ABC or XYZ, then everything would be okay with me”. Now, I am not saying that these people don’t need to change, or that their behavior is not impacting on you. But what I am saying is that the only person that we can change is ourselves.  

The only person that we have control over is ourselves. We can leave that horse to water, but we can’t make it drink it. And this is something that I’ve had to learn over the years. I often joke that if I was in charge, it would be a lot better, a lot easier. But I cannot make anybody change. I can give them the tools, I can give them the support. I can facilitate things in an entirely different way and make it accessible on different levels. But still, unless that person is willing to change, wanting to change, understanding what they need to do as part of that transformation process. And this is key, actually truly wants to. And this is it, truly actually wants to change. Then there’s nothing that I can do, you can do, or anybody else can do to make that happen. So number one, just try to change yourself, change your behavior, change your thoughts process, change your belief system. Just concentrate on you, because you are the most important person in your world after all.  

So just concentrate on you, which leads quite nicely into number two, because when we are going through a change process, that’s a huge amount of energy. It’s a huge amount of purposely doing something, having to consciously think of things. So number two on the list, it’s okay to rest. One of my most enjoyable moments ever when you’re starting to work with someone is to say, “So what do you do to rest?” And they say, “Well, I do yoga, I do Tai Chi, I do visualisations, I read a book, I zone out and watch TV, I might watch a film, I might listen to a podcast”, and it’s like, right, “that’s not really resting. That’s actually doing an activity, but just in a different modality to what we might think is doing”. And I encourage people to rest. I encourage people to actually start to cultivate the art of resting because we don’t get enough. We don’t do enough. When we are resting, we have to understand the processes that are going on within our body. When we are resting, we’re allowing energy to be freed up to be able to be concentrated on detoxification processes, for reorganisation processes in our brain. There’s still a lot going on when we are resting. For example, not many people realise that right about 10:00 at night, give or take a little bit of time because obviously we’re not all dead on the anatomical clock, but right about that time, people often get a second wind burst of energy. Now that’s not to be used to keep on going. Really, we should be asleep before then, and that extra burst of energy is to give our body everything it needs to have a thorough detox, to have a thorough clean out while we’re sleeping. And that’s something that’s remarkable to me. I’ve said, I’m really tired about 8/9:00 and then I get a second wind, so keep on going. It’s like, well, we need to realise that that second win is not to really party with, it’s for our body to have a clear out and our brain to have a sort out. 

So this is something that’s really interesting for me, because moving on to number three on the list of what my beautiful Unbroken souls have said is actually when I tell people that doing nothing is doing something. We never, ever are actually doing nothing. So when I’m saying to someone who really is at the edge of burnout, who may have a chronic condition, be it stress or a neurological condition, or anything in life which is leaving them feeling overwhelmed and unwell, it’s literally doing nothing is still doing something. And we have to realise this, like just sitting and breathing. We are still completing a multitude of systemic things within our body and within our brain. And we need to look at some of that energy consumption and how we’re feeding our bodies, how we’re feeding our brain. Just think back to, if you’ve got children now, just think how much sleep a baby needs, how much sleep a child needs to assimilate development, to keep on growing, to repair and renew and to make sense of what their day has thrown up. So number three on the list doing nothing is actually doing something.  

Number four, big one, learning how to say no. I often like doing an exercise with people where it literally is practice saying it, practice saying no. And you’ll not be able to see this, but as I’m saying, no, I’m literally using my hand as a gesture like ‘no’. And I’m not saying that, just recently, I have added an expletive to that ‘no’, I found it quite satisfying, but no, just no. And that no can be to a multitude of things. It can be to yourself as a prompt that I’ve done enough. I’m not doing anymore. It can be a prompt to just mentally saying a no to someone who’s trying to crush your barriers, your boundaries, trying to infiltrate your energy in your space. No is such a powerful word. Try saying it now. No. Just no. How many times do we actually say it? How many times is it actually used fruitfully? You know, we’re so conditioned into being Yes Men, Yes Women, Yes Society. The power of yes. I want to start a movement. The power of no. Just say no. And for those of you of a specific age, you’ll remember the just say no campaign round in the 80s and just say no to drugs. But just say no in general, no. Say no to anything that doesn’t give you sovereignty. Say no to something that doesn’t respect your autonomy. Say no to something that doesn’t value you as a person. Just learn how to say no.  

And if you’re not quite sure of what that no is or where that no comes from, number five, start to listen to your body. The body never lies. The body holds so much memory, so much experience and it doesn’t lie. The brain tends to tell us quite a few porkies to be fair. And the brain is not always useful. The brain is not our friend. The brain’s job is to keep us alive. And if we go to bed every night alive, the brain is giving itself a little bit of a congratulations. It’s done its job. The brain doesn’t differentiate between good or bad. It doesn’t. And it also doesn’t differentiate between true and not true. The brain is not any kind of referee over things. Its job is just to keep us alive. It sometimes represses memories. We have distorted remembering. Our recall may not exactly be as was. The body however, the body stores everything. The truth. We need to connect more with it. We often completely negate the body. When was the last time we congratulated our body on a job well done? When was the last time we thanked our body for taking us all the way through life? Listen to your body. The body never lies.  

That was number five on the list. Number six on the list. This is something so important because when we’re looking at sort of being Unbroken, when we’re looking at how we are within an environment, how the environment is affecting us, we know we’re looking at sort of identity level stuff as well. One of the things that the people who have worked within the Unbroken process have said is that it’s so useful to have a mirror held up to them and really understand who they are. So what do you do when that mirror is held up to you? Do you look at it and be thankful? Do you turn away from it and be fearful? Is it difficult for you to look in that mirror? You look with half open eyes, half closed eyes? Do you believe what you see when you are in the mirror? We need to start looking at this. We need to start looking at our identity and what that means for us. Who am I? That’s one of the deepest questions that is still debated by philosophers. Still, researched by scientists, still thought about an ethical point of view. Who am I? And what does that mean? So what happens to you when you put that mirror up? Because the Unbroken soldiers have said that this has helped them to actually live a better life, become a better person.  

So number eight in the Enlightening Eight, number eight, what we’re going to finish with, it won’t always be easy. The process is never, ever an easy linear process. We are emotional. We have memories, we have dependence. We have attachments. We have commitments. Often when we’re trying to change, when we’re trying to loosen the real self, there will be lots of things around us that don’t want us to do it. And also, often it’s difficult for us to do it because it’s not familiar. The brain always wants familiar. Whether that familiar is something that is steadily taking us down the path of disillusionment and existential crisis, or whether that familiar is just keeping us going on the hamster wheel of workaholism. Familiar is familiar. So when we’re trying to put any change in place, we have to realise this, that despite any kind of Groupon graduates saying, “Come on, this workshop in your life will be transformed in 3 hours” or “do this process and instantaneously utopia will arrive”. Change is not easy at all. It takes at least eight weeks for a new neural pathway to start developing in the brain. Eight weeks, 56 days. And during that time, just imagine the processes your brain will be throwing at you to get you back into the familiar. Just imagine what people around you will be doing to get you back into the familiar. Let’s understand all of this. And let’s also understand the amount of energy it takes. So it’s not going to be easy. But then whatever is worth it? How easy is that? We have to work hard to get where we want to and when we’re talking about being Unbroken, how old are you? How many years of conditioning are we trying to undo? Where have your beliefs come from? What are your societal norms? What is considered to be acceptable in your community? What are the values that everybody tries to live up to? We have to try and unravel all of that. That is not going to be an overnight experience.  

So it’s not going to be easy. But I’ll tell you what makes it easier. And this is something. This is your bonus. This is your bonus onto Enlightening Eight. This is a bonus, what many people say. Being part of a network of like-minded people who might be on a different part of their journey, might be on a different step of their process, but all of them know that at different parts and at different points, they have experienced a similar hardship to you. They have experienced their brain not wanting to embrace newness. They have experienced people around them not wanting them to change. They have experienced the battle between “now is okay, and I’m going to give okay up for what is in the future, which I don’t even know what that is”. The uncertainty of it all. I have to live with the anxiety, I have to live with these unfamiliar feelings to something that isn’t really even that tangible anymore.  

And that’s what Unbroken has been designed for. That’s what this network is for. It’s to help people, to support people, to connect people. To connect people so that they can be their true, amazing, beautiful, unequivocally human being in all of its essence and glory. So there you go. There’s the Enlightening Eight. What the Unbroken souls say have helped them the most. 

So I hope there was something in there that you’re going to find useful. You’re going to find beneficial to your process. Please do give me a five star rating. Put any comments below and subscribe to get more from the Unbroken Podcast.  

Coming up, we’ve got some really amazing stuff around the principles of Unbroken, which you will have heard in previous podcast. Acceptance, integrity, resilience, ego, kindness with a little bit of an all wonder and magic thrown in there. There’s something in there for everybody and your call to action today. Tell two people, tell two of your people in your world in your network who you know would really benefit from listening to the Unbroken Podcast and being part of the Unbroken network.  

So until next time, thank you for listening, everybody. And again, if you’ve got any questions or query or comments, please place them below. Give me a five star rating and I will see you again quite soon.  

Welcome to your 60 second recap on the Enlightening Eight. What Unbroken souls say have helped me the most. Now I want to use this 60 seconds to give you something that I consider to be the best advice, is learn how to say no. Learn how to say no to anything that doesn’t feel right. That doesn’t seem right. That doesn’t sound right. That doesn’t make you feel right. Learn how to say no. Practice it now. No. Learn the gesture. No. Learn how to say no. We need to get far better at saying no. Instead of having books dedicated to the power of yes and yes to everything, I think we should have something that would say no to everything, no to things that drain us, not to things that disempower us. No to anything that tries to tell us that we are not the expert on us. Just no. So that’s what I want to leave you with. The 60 second recap on this one is literally the power of no. Just say it. No.  

So I hope you enjoyed that. Please make sure to give me a five star review. Any comments below, and please subscribe. Remember, the call to action always for the Unbroken is that you tell two people that you feel need Unbroken in their lives. So thank you for listening. And I hope to see you all again soon. 

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