What Happens When Your Health is Taken Away

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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.