Trigger warning: Suicide, addiction

Todays guest is someone who truly embodies resilience. Alexa Towersey is an internationally published celebrity trainer, sports cover model, motivational and mental health speaker with over 16 years experience in the health & fitness industry. Born into a military family, her journey started after she was bullied at school for being too skinny - her nickname was Alexa Annorexa ,and the weights room of the gym became her sanctuary. Not one to be satisfied with being "comfortable", Alexa has taken part in endless physical competitions and achievements until she came across Gym Jones, and fell in love with the "Mind is Primary" philosophy. Now, Alexa uses her knowledge and lived experience to give back as a passionate advocate for mental health. She delivers key note talks and has just featured on the U.S. version of Naked and Afraid. But she has overcome some truly enormous life hurdles that stem from her past and what she has learnt from those will serve as lessons for us all.

In this episode Alexa shares:

• The bullying and rejection she suffered as a child
• How discovering strength training changed her life
• The period where her mum was diagnosed with manic depression
• How her mums behaviour and changed family dynamic caused her to discover alcohol
• How she went down a spiral of binge drinking for 14 years
• The moment she had to intervene when her mum tried to take her own life
• How she lived through her dad dying from alcoholism and liver cirrhosis
• How her social life changed once she stopped drinking
• The shame she developed from her life and how therapy helped her
• How she died 4 times on the table during hip surgery
• How she ended up on the show Naked and afraid

Key Quotes

“I surprised myself, because I had no idea that I had the capacity to feel that low.”

“I grew up in situations I didn’t wanna be in, with people I didn’t want to be like.”

“I woke up in ICU with 3 of my emergency contacts standing around my bed crying.”

More about Alexa

You can find Alexa on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/actionalexa/

Or try her personal training service here: https://www.tractionwithactionalexa.com/

You can get involved with the podcast online

To try out our resilience course: https://www.challengesthatchangeus.com/surviving-2-thriving-course1

On facebook in our community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/challengesthatchangeus

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

If you want to contact the podcast, email us here: support@challengesthatchangeus.com

Or check out our website: www.Challengesthatchangeus.com

If you want to find out more about what Ali does, check out her business via the website:http://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au

For her other business you can find it through the websites:www.altitudefitnessarmidale.com.au

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Trigger warning: This episode discusses eating disorders

Eating disorders are something we are still coming to understand as a society, and one of the things many of us don’t realise is that they can really affect anyone. Even an athlete, who has to be healthy to compete can find themselves with a disordered style of eating.

That is exactly what happened to Holly Harris, who quickly experienced the many different ways an eating disorder could effect her health and her life.

Holly has been a 6 x Australian Champion in multiple disciplines including XCM, XCO and Gravel and has represented Australia all over the world at world championships, world cups and world tour events. There are too many to fit in here but a few are:

2023 Australian 24hr Championships 2nd Elite Women

2022 Elite Women National Gravel Champion

2019 Otway Odyssey Elite Women Winner (One of Australia’s hardest MTB Marathons)

2018 Cape to Cape Elite Women Winner (One of Australia’s most prestigious races)

2017 Runner up Des Femme Grafton to Inverell (Females raced the same course as the Males).

In this episode Holly shares:

• How she got into cycling
• How her racing career progressed
• The peaks of racing that she achieved
• What it was like as a racer when covid caused the industry to stop
• The impact her eating disorder had on her personal life
• The extended health problems that the eating disorder caused
• How she got to a place where she realised what was going on
• What her worst day looked like
• What her road to recovery looked like
• Why she didn’t tell people publicly
• How her chronic fatigue hit and changed things
• The challenge of having doctors tell her nothing was wrong when she knew there was
• The self talk and negative stories she was telling herself and how she managed it
• The exciting things that are coming up for her now

Key Quotes

“I didn’t realise at the time what an impact it was making on my life but now looking back and being healthy I realise how much it took away from my life and from me.”

“I couldn’t listen to my family or my friends. I’d get really defensive about it. I think it really hurt a of my friendships.”

More about

You can follow Holly’s journey on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hollyharris_7/

You can get involved with the podcast online

To try out our resilience course: https://www.challengesthatchangeus.com/surviving-2-thriving-course1

On facebook in our community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/challengesthatchangeus

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

If you want to contact the podcast, email us here: support@challengesthatchangeus.com

Or check out our website: www.Challengesthatchangeus.com

If you want to find out more about what Ali does, check out her business via the website:http://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au

For her other business you can find it through the websites:www.altitudefitnessarmidale.com.au

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Trigger warning: this episode discusses the topic of suicide

Muscular Dystrophy is something that has really only started to become more commonly known in the past decade or so. But even now most people might have a rough general idea of it, but not actually know the details of just how varied and complicated it can be.

Rhiannon Anderson was diagnosed at 3 and her parents were told she would not live past her 18th birthday. This was compounded by her need for scoliosis surgery in 2012.

Since then she has graduated from the University of Southern Queensland with honours and a Bachelor of Law in 2023. She has worked as a paralegal and now as a Life Coach, runs a successful blog and lives her life with her two dogs, Lexi and Levi, goes on day trips to the Gold Coast with her family, and enjoys watching Aussie Rules Football, and working with horses.

In this episode Rhiannon shares:

• What it was like being diagnosed with muscular dystrophy
• Why it took so long to be diagnosed
• What it was like growing up as a kid with Muscular Dystrophy
• How her MD progressed as she hit puberty and how this affected her
• What her condition is like now
• The challenge of being diagnosed with scoliosis as a kid as well
• What the journey to recover from scoliosis was like
• The mantras and inspiration her grandpa gave her that helped her through her recovery
• How she lives knowing she has a terminal condition
• The ways she lives her life despite her condition
• Her remarkable big goal to achieve despite her condition
• Why working with horses has helped her as a form of therapy
• Her thoughts on how going through the mental challenges helps develop her into the person she is

Key Quotes

“I had to walk the entire hallway unassisted. And it took me 12 minutes to walk a 50 metre corridor.”

“I went from being able to sit on the floor and pull myself up to having to only sit on a chair, in the space of a couple of months

More about Rhiannon

You can find her via her website: https://livingabled.com.au/

Or on socials.

Instagram: Living_abled

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/livingabledcoaching

You can get involved with the podcast online

To try out our resilience course: https://www.challengesthatchangeus.com/surviving-2-thriving-course1

On facebook in our community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/challengesthatchangeus

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

If you want to contact the podcast, email us here: support@challengesthatchangeus.com

Or check out our website: www.Challengesthatchangeus.com

If you want to find out more about what Ali does, check out her business via the website:

http://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au

For her other business you can find it through the websites: www.altitudefitnessarmidale.com.au

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you’ve been a long time listener of this podcast you’ll know the advocating for awareness around POTS is something very close to my heart.

Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome can be absolutely debilitating, and that’s not taking into account how many years it can take for someone to actually get a diagnosis.

All of this can be truly crushing for anyone, but is especially so for someone who is incredibly active, driven and passionate.

All of those words could be used to describe Claire Clark who, prior to her diagnosis had been a scuba instructor, founder of female focused bootcamps, paramedic and more.

Since working through that challenge and coming to grips with her new reality, Claire is an advocate for the POTS Foundation and her story will blow you away.

In this episode she shares:

• Her early life of active work
• Her life as a paramedic
• The moment she got injured at work
• How her injury was exacerbated and led to a full health breakdown
• The numerous times her medical team dismissed her symptoms and almost didn’t diagnose her
• How she finally did get a diagnosis
• How the door to more issues that was opened by her POTS
• The moment she realised she would never return to her former health
• How she learned to recalibrate her load of work for a day
• How she got in touch with the POTS foundation
• The additional illnesses and medical dangers she has gone through since her diagnosis

Key Quotes

“At the moment even walking to my letterbox is difficult.”

“I was always somebody that helped others and I couldn’t help myself”

More about

You can support the POTS Foundation by becoming a volunteer here: https://potsfoundation.org.au/get-involved/#volunteer

You can support Claire’s art here: https://www.instagram.com/unmuddledartist?igsh=Z3FmNXVpNXc1Mnhh

POTS Page Turners Go Fund Me Bookclub https://gofund.me/0cd66e31

You can get involved with the podcast online

To try out our resilience course: https://www.challengesthatchangeus.com/surviving-2-thriving-course1

On facebook in our community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/challengesthatchangeus

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

If you want to contact the podcast, email us here: support@challengesthatchangeus.com

Or check out our website: www.Challengesthatchangeus.com

If you want to find out more about what Ali does, check out her business via the website:

http://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au

For her other business you can find it through the websites:

www.altitudefitnessarmidale.com.au

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’ve spoken before about what happens when High Performers push themselves so hard that they break down. But what happens when the physical break down symptoms occur, but you don’t realise it is because of your anxiety and mind?

That’s the position Georgie Dent found herself in when her anxiety and stress sent her into a physical breakdown that took her over 4 months to recover from.

Now she is the CEO at The Parenthood, ad writer and public speaker, but the journey to all of that was full of false starts and a lot of wrong answers that she had to overcome.

In this episode she shares:

• Her life before her breakdown
• What happened at the moment of the breakdown
• What happened the day after the breakdown
• How living with her health conditions showed up as anxiety and a constant negative scared mental loop
• Why thinking the symptoms were in her head sent her into a spiral
• Why she hated people being supportive and checking in with her
• What the 4 months after the breakdown were like
• The mental drain of continuously not finding a diagnosis
• The appointment that was her turning point
• Her experience going to a psychiatric hospital
• What her life is like now and whether the anxiety remains
• What happens when her health dips now and how she manages that
• What it was like integrating back into society as she recovered

Key Quotes

“So much was making sense to me about how unforgiving I had been to myself for so long.”

“I was living in a state of constant panic and anxiety that I didn’t realise.”

“I had internalised this idea that because I had these medical issues I was deficient in some way.”

More about Georgie

You can find out more about Georgie and her projects here: https://georgiedent.com/

Info on The Parent Hood is here: https://www.theparenthood.org.au/

The two programs that make Georgie laugh are Schitts Creek and VEEP.

You can get involved with the podcast online

To try out our resilience course: https://www.challengesthatchangeus.com/surviving-2-thriving-course1

On facebook in our community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/challengesthatchangeus

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

If you want to contact the podcast, email us here: support@challengesthatchangeus.com

Or check out our website: www.Challengesthatchangeus.com

If you want to find out more about what Ali does, check out her business via the website:

http://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au

For her other business you can find it through the websites:

www.altitudefitnessarmidale.com.au

@trialtitudeperformance

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Trigger warning: this episode discusses suicide and family violence. If you feel you need someone to talk to, call lifeline on 13 11 14.

By now you know how I feel about Family Violence. This is something we need to eradicate completely.

The effects of family violence on survivors can reach through decades of life and that was very much the case for this episodes guest, Coen Tan.

Growing up as an emotionally sensitive child, Coen often “felt” emotions that people were not aware of feeling themselves. This is already a difficult path to navigate, but through in family violence, shaming and isolation and Coen had a cocktail of challenges that he only really began to confront in his adult life.

Now, Coen is a professional speaker, Cultural Transformation and Values Assessment Consultant and Appreciative Inquiry Practitioner and he works with people to tap into their values and help their innate gifts to flourish.

In this episode they share:

• How he was sensitive to others emotions as a child
• How his own emotions were brushed off or disregarded as a child
• His experience with domestic violence as a child
• How his emotions turned to anger and that anger stayed with him through adulthood
• The fact he became his mums surrogate husband for emotions at the age of 10
• The bullying he experienced in school and how that made him ‘lose his voice’
• What the combination of these experiences did to his thoughts about himself
• How this impacted the types of relationships he sought out as an adult
• The point where he considered suicide
• His experience being in the mental health institute
• The course he undertook that changed things for him
• How an addiction to the emotional highs of seminars and workshops lost him his life savings
• How he came full circle and reclaimed his voice

Key Quotes

“I was hiding away from the emotional challenges I had in school.”

“Every experience that happens to us are there to teach us lessons and there to serve us in a certain way.”

“I had to move back with my parents because I was broke. Because I was addicted to that spiritual escape.”

More about Coen

You can find out more about Coen via his website: www.coentan.com

You can listen to his podcast here: https://www.coentan.com/podcast/

You can get involved with the podcast online

To try out our resilience course: https://www.challengesthatchangeus.com/surviving-2-thriving-course1

On facebook in our community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/challengesthatchangeus Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

If you want to contact the podcast, email us here: support@challengesthatchangeus.com Or check out our website: www.Challengesthatchangeus.com

If you want to find out more about what Ali does, check out her business via the website: http://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au

For her other business you can find it through the websites: www.altitudefitnessarmidale.com.au

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we are talking about a challenge that almost 50% of the population will experience. Menopause.

But like everything, menopause can come on a sliding scale, and even if we think we are prepared it can hit, very hard.

That is what happened to Susan Northey.

Susan now works at my new business Soul Studio in Armidale as a breath work facilitator but also works in the nutrition space.

She had previously been working as a personal trainer and was living and breathing fitness and nutrition. But that didn’t stop menopause from hitting so hard that she had to literally stop everything she was doing to avoid breaking down entirely.

In this episode Susan shares:

- The body and mind changes she started to notice

- The emotional changes she experienced with menopause

- The moment she realised she had to stop work altogether

- How she figured out it was menopause

- What people do wrong when figuring out how to manage menopause

- The choice her doctors wanted her to do that she felt was wrong

- The meditation and mindfulness she started using

- How her partner supported her and helped her

- How she is going now

Key Quotes

“I'm not loathing myself and feeling unworthy like I did 6 months ago.”

“22 years of taking on peoples issues and forever helping everyone else and I realised, who is taking care of me?”

“I'd go home and need to sleep at 2 in the afternoon which has never been me in my life. I could physically feel my body shutting down.”

More about

Susan’s businesses can be found on Instagram:

@CustomisedNutrition22

@breath_revival

And you can find her working at Soul Studio: https://www.soulstudioarmidale.com/soul-studio

You can get involved with the podcast online

To try out our resilience course: https://www.challengesthatchangeus.com/surviving-2-thriving-course1

On facebook in our community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/challengesthatchangeus

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

If you want to contact the podcast, email us here: support@challengesthatchangeus.com

Or check out our website: www.Challengesthatchangeus.com

If you want to find out more about what Ali does, check out her business via the website:

http://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au

For her other business you can find it through the websites:

www.altitudefitnessarmidale.com.au

@trialtitudeperformance

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Firstly I want to thank everyone for their patience when we were unable to release an episode last week. It’s been a big few weeks in the Flynn household and sometimes you just have to admit you can’t do everything.

If you were in our Facebook group you would have seen that my daughter Jess has been quite sick and I just didn’t have capacity.

But I was talking to Jess and I said I didn’t think I’d be able to release an episode this week as well and with her blessing we came up with a plan. Why not interview her and share her story.

She is my biggest inspiration when things get tough and one of the most inspirational and resilient people I know and I am so excited to have her join me on the podcast.

In this episode Jess shares:

- Her back story and what’s been happening for the last 12 years for her with a Chronic Illness

- What it's like for her when she has a relapse

- Her greatest challenge with this disease

- What it would look like if she went to school for 45 minutes while relapsing

- What she's looking forward to for her future

- Her mantras or words she tells herself

- Her greatest fear at the moment

- What she would do differently as a parent

Key Quotes

“I always find that I talk a lot more when I'm sick cause it helps the pain.”

“Next month looks completely different, because usually it does.”

“Find something to focus on. When you find that thing to focus on it helps with the pain.”

You can get involved with the podcast online

To try out our resilience course: https://www.challengesthatchangeus.com/surviving-2-thriving-course1

On facebook in our community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/challengesthatchangeus

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

If you want to contact the podcast, email us here: support@challengesthatchangeus.com

Or check out our website: www.Challengesthatchangeus.com

If you want to find out more about what Ali does, check out her business via the website:

http://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au

For her other business you can find it through the websites:

www.altitudefitnessarmidale.com.au

@trialtitudeperformance

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.