[MUSIC]

Hello and welcome to Revolutionize Your Love Life.

Do you want to know more about love relationships?

What makes them work?

How to create the one of your best dreams?

Do you want to be in a really healthy,

juicy love relationship?

In these podcasts, we will give ideas and

practical advice to light your way.

Whether you're looking for a love partner,

already in a relationship, you wish could be better.

Or leaving one that has run its course.

There will be something to inspire, empower and support you.

Revolutionize Your Love Life is a fortnightly podcast where you will access

the knowledge and wisdom of love experts and

relationship coaches from across the world to help you find true fulfillment in love.

I am your host, Heather Garbett.

Welcome.

>> Hello everybody.

I'm here today with a wonderful Hillary Briggs.

It's a real privilege to have her here.

We're going to talk about overwhelm and how to overcome it.

Really how to develop resilience in yourself, in your work, in your life.

Specifically as well, your love life, I hope.

So once described as Britain's most exciting executive under 40,

by Business Age magazine, Hillary trained as an engineer at

the University of Cambridge before embarking on a corporate career with

Rover Group, Willpool Europe and Laird Group, PLC.

For the past 20 years, she's supported smaller businesses in improving

performance and managing changes, including implementing new systems,

instigating culture change programs and integrating post acquisition processes.

And in the last seven years, she's taken up triathlons,

transforming herself from a low grade amateur to a member of the Team GP,

GB age group team.

She is the 2023 European champion and world championships silver medallists,

having overcome a major Achilles injury along the way.

Hillary has learned the importance of resilience in all her activities and

how to effectively increase it.

And in top of all of this, she's also an international award winning TEDx

speaker. Thank you so much for joining us, Hillary. Welcome.

Thanks very much. It's a pleasure to be here.

So first of all, tell us about that Achilles injury, because, wow, that's a big deal.

Well, it's a bit of a, I'll try to keep the story as short as possible on it,

but I had managed to wreck my Achilles initially several decades before playing

tennis. And interestingly, at the time I was, it was one, I was at Rover in

production management under a lot of pressure and stress.

And I remember one time saying, look, I'm heading off now, I'm going off and

I've got a game of tennis planned with a friend after work and played for

about 40 minutes. Can still remember pushing off from one side of the court

to get a ball. And it just felt like someone had crept up behind me and

whacked me on the back of the leg with a racket, who also fell to the ground

and looking around, there's no one there. So you're trying to think, well, what

happened? I hadn't actually ruptured the tendon

totally, but it was quite a serious injury. But at the time, I wasn't

recommended surgery and it did, you know, recover pretty well.

So I was able to get back to doing what I wanted to do after, you know, a few

months and so on. So why in the clock forward a few decades, I just started

doing triathlon the year before. So this is in 2017

and now and I'd had slight tendonitis and I'd seen a physio, I was doing things

and actually felt, oh, this seems to be improving.

And I just had a stupid fall off the bike, not just my runabout bike, I was

actually picking up shopping. I think whether I was

slightly unbalanced the bike, I'm not quite sure what happened, but I

just stalled it, fell to the side, I had my feet in cleats and while it was

taking a foot out or when I hit the ground, I'm not quite sure.

It hurt not as much as the original injury, but yeah, it was damaging and

what it turned out, there was a monster tear that when I went for an

ultrasound a couple of days later, that is the guy moved my ankle, you know, this

sort of moon shaped, crescent shaped tear. So it was a case of,

don't pass go, go straight to A and E. And I think looking at it

afterwards, so the damage was so bad after the, I had an operation on it

and the surgeon said he never seen a tendon in such bad shape

in a living person, he had to do it, it was like, oh my goodness.

So it actually replaced the tendon with another one, he had warned me they might

have to do that. So I must admit, I think how did that happen?

Well, it was the combination of the old injury, I think starting to put more

load on it with the sport, but also I think as I, what I hadn't

appreciated was as you get older, the muscles are deteriorating and what

I hear now, actually I think it could be even as early as 25, certainly 30,

your muscle mass is going down, unless you're actively doing something.

So me arrogantly thinking, well, you know, it's warmups and other stuff,

I don't need to do that, you know, I'm going out cycling and running and so on.

Well, I've learned the hard way, that's not enough. And I think particularly for

women, this strength work, resistance work is really, really important.

So I think that's kind of how it happened and it's, well, I was worried

and frightened that I wasn't going to walk properly again, you know, I'd know

sort of replacing attendance sounded like a big job to me, I think it was quite a

rare procedure. So whatever the physio told me at the hospital,

I did it in my magcobius notes and I did it religiously.

And I think that actually was the step that moved me in my triathlon journey

from low grade amateur to doing much, much more. And I'm just

really gobsmacked at what I've been able to achieve.

But it was an 18 month recovery from the operation

to getting back doing a standard distance triathlon.

And I just kept doing the exercises because that's all I knew what to do.

And then equipped with a proper bike as well, I came first in my age group in a

couple of events in 2019. And it's like, well, it's amazing. And I started to hear

about Team GB and these international events, I had no idea there was anything

like that. And then it was, well, could I possibly do that?

It just seemed so far fetched. And I realized it was a bit of research

online. I needed to take around 30 minutes or so

off my time. I was about three hours 10 on the events that I was doing.

And which, you know, half an hour off that seemed like a major challenge. But I just

set to it and bit by bit was making progress. And yeah,

it's, I was doing an event yesterday. And I mean, each event obviously is

slightly different, but just over two hours 42.

So, and I'm still getting better in some ways. And I know I've still got

scope. So it's, I think what's, yeah, when I've demonstrated this thing

about muscle deterioration, you can do something about it. And it's important.

So, yeah. So people may be asking, what's this got to do with love and

relationships? You know, magnificent. It is. But for me, this is

absolutely fundamental because it's self care. The things that you've talked

about in your story, you recognize in retrospect, you were under a lot of

pressure and stress when you did the first injury.

Yes. And you realized that you could see that your body was aging in

retrospect and that you needed to do much more.

This has come to me at the ripe old age of 65. And I'm doing now

resistance training with Kimra here and doing lots more walking,

minding my eating, minding my alcohol intake, because I can feel

when I get a lot of pressure and stress, the weakness in my body to manage that.

And for me, if you've got all of that going in on your body,

what is left of you to have any sort of relationship with anybody?

It's your body, it's your mind, it's your emotions.

There's nothing left to give. And there's also a greater difficulty to receive.

Yeah. That's my take on thing. Yeah, I would totally agree. And I think what's

interesting, the other thing that was going on when I had this

major injury, I was also under a lot of pressure and stress at work.

So I think there's a lesson that if you're under stress,

you're much more likely, you know, that again, the body perhaps is tense or there's

you know, there's all sorts of things. I'm sure there's lots of chemical

things going on in the body as well, that you're vulnerable.

And so I think it's one of the things that interests me with

overwhelm. I think it's why it's such an important topic

to be aware of your state and be able to manage things around you

that you keep within safe limits, that's saying.

Yeah, yeah. So there's, I think it's podcast 45. I talk about the basic needs

for your relationship and it's knowing what your own needs and feelings are

first. So that happens on a physical level as well as the mental level.

Please tell me your experience of it. Yes, absolutely. I think,

as you say, I think we know we've got a limit or a capacity and each

individual's going to have a different capacity.

But one thing that I came across, which illustrates something what's happening

under pressure and stress very well is from a man called Dr. Peter Nixon,

who in the 70s was working, he called the human function curve.

And it basically is as you increase stress,

you know, if you do have no stress at all, you're probably just going to sit on the

couch, you're not actually going to do anything. So it's stress actually is a

good thing, but it and it goes up. But what you'd expect it or like to think

that you keep pushing yourself and your performance will keep increasing.

Actually, it reaches a plateau and then starts going down. And under, if you keep

pushing yourself beyond that point, then you're heading for breakdown and burnout.

And I think that's where, I suppose early in my career, when I was in

production management in the car industry, massive pressure,

colleagues were having breakdowns and panic attacks. I was probably on the verge

of breakdowns at time. But what I noticed, there was one particular day I woke up

and I had this, actually it hurt to breathe. And I was worried about that.

It's the only time I've called out a GP. And by sort of lunch time, it had morphed

into a backache and the guy gave me painkillers and so on.

I called another guy back in a couple of days because it was still there.

And a more experienced GP came out, asked me a few questions.

What sort of work was I doing? And when I said production manager, the car

business, he's rolled his eyes and so that's another one. So, you know,

with a lot of people under pressure. But my learning from it was actually,

my body was telling me something. So the backache, my simple interpretation of that

was I was pushing myself too hard. So it did recover fairly quickly.

But it became my warning sign because if I suddenly got a little twinge in the back,

it's like, okay, I need to literally back off here. And I learned to manage that.

I haven't had the problem for years now, but I think there might be other things that come up.

And I do my best to be aware of how I am and what's going on.

Because my belief is that you can ignore these things, but actually they come back

in a more damaging form. And actually in the last few years, I think having had this Achilles

operation, dealing with that and a high stress work again, I got shingles. And I think that,

again, I look at that and think, yeah, that's my body saying stop.

So I think learning, even if a simple thing is a one to 10 scale on waking up, how am I today?

I have, because I do have my sport, I have a Garmin watch, which has an interesting feature

called body battery, which I don't know the exact algorithm details, but it's a compilation of

heart rate, heart rate, variability, stress and so on. And it gives you a 0-100 rating

of your sort of battery level. And it's interesting and looking at the impact of sleep. So after a

good night's sleep, bounce back to 100 pretty much unless I've totally wiped out yesterday with a

triathlon, I did talk a bit of a pasting during the day. But it's interesting when you look at the

impact to either illness. So when I actually the COVID vaccination, the very first vaccination,

what was fascinating overnight, my body battery actually went down. So it was, you could see my

body was fighting something. I did get COVID in having had even two or three jobs. And it,

yeah, it didn't recover for about three days. So that's interesting that I think if you have some

sort of illness, it's not going to help. You're being able to deal with whatever your sources

of overwhelm. And I think the other thing I've noticed, if I have alcohol, even a couple of

glasses of wine, which let's face it, we have quite a boozy culture, I think in this country,

and go out and share a bottle of wine with someone that I know will have quite devastating effects

on my sleep recovery normally. So I think research I came across recently by a company called Utopia

was saying under stress, that's one in six people attempted to hit the bottle and, you know, a glass

of wine. Let's do that. I think my learning from my own experience of monitoring things,

even a glass of wine or something, it's not going to help. And I think having that awareness

and find other ways that you can do things to reduce or improve your physical side,

nutrition, you know, people might be hitting the chocolate or, you know, we've all got potential

addictions and things that going on. And I think it's just being aware of what's really going on

when you do that. Yes, absolutely. And that tuning into your feelings and needs on an emotional level,

you can extend that to a physical level as well. And really pinpoint the things that are

in need of your attention. I completely agree with you about alcohol. I've loved wine all of my

adult life, actually probably far too young in my juvenile life as well. You know,

we'll go into all that. But you know, I went to France as a 14 year old and, you know,

they have wine with lunch. What's what you do? So it became part of my way of being. But I really

have found, particularly since all the lockdowns, I was drinking much more. And I was much more

depleted, just energy less. So I take the on board too. Now,

do you need to say anything else about what overwhelm actually is? You've talked about some

of the physical things and typical causes. Is there anything more? Yeah, I think, I mean,

what I've my experience in work situations, what can lead to overwhelm, there might be

specific things that go wrong. You know, operations, things do go wrong. And for the most dramatic

example, I had was I was in charge of a group of factories in Germany. And I had one of the

factories burned down. Thankfully, no one was injured. But we had the ability to stop about

a quarter, a third of the German car industry, because we were supplying to VW and Audi and all

these people. So there was a bit of pressure on there. But it was a specific thing. So that's a

dramatic experience, but it might be somebody key person resigns or there's some HR issue.

Give me a whole plethora of things that can cause it. But I think there's also

one of perhaps called chronic situations where perhaps understaffing people aren't trained

that just every day, things aren't going quite as they should. And it just seems relentless. That

might be less, it's more dangerous in a way, because you think it's no big deal. But if it's

going on all the time, it's just building the pressure. And I think that's where as soon as you

start getting the physical signs in my experience, so it might be disturbed, sleep, certainly panic

attacks, aches and pains, it's your body saying do something and ignore those signs at your peril.

And it's for me, in my psychotherapy hat, that is by the time it gets to physical,

you're in real trouble. I would say yes. So I think it's learning, and I think when I found

myself, the better and better awareness I've got, I'm able to pick things up earlier and ideally

avoid them. So I think, again, in my experience, life doesn't bring things in a neat, handy sequence.

So there was, there might be lots of work pressures, you might be on top of that, or just about

managing. But then if you have something in your personal life, could be an illness or bereavement

relationship problems, that can just tip you over. So I think it's being able to have

a sense of your whole system and what you're dealing with is really important.

I really love that. But for me, when I look at things, there is just the primary self,

mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, and all of those parts of yourself need taking care of.

And as women in our culture, that's really difficult because we are the designated carers,

even these days. And if you add into that basic care, then there's the care that goes outwards

with generally the ones who drive relationships on an emotional level. And that takes quite a lot of

focus and intensity, the same things, you know, what do I feel? What do I need? There's all of that,

what do they feel? What do they need? What do the children need? What does the grandmother need?

And it becomes, I think, my word for that is kaleidoscopic. And then you add a job into that,

and you know, somebody like me or youth has been quite passionate about what we do and really

intent and lots of women are. Then it's really key, I think, to come back and do those questionings.

You know, what do I need to resource me? And it might not be like two weeks off in the Bahamas.

It might be a need a massage every week. It might be a need different nutrition.

I don't know, you know, it might be a need to go on play squash. It might need to express

myself through painting or being an acquire. All of those things are really important.

Absolutely. And I've found in the past, actually holidays, you think in a way that should be,

you know, the solution of things. But I think, again, with the tech and so on now,

it can actually be more stressful because if we're pushing a wave of things to do,

then the thought of going away for a week, it's like, "Oh my goodness, I've got to get all this

finished." And so there's an extra, you know, beavering away to try and do that. You can go away and

have a fantastic week. But when you come back, there's a whole pile of more things to do. So I

work on the basis of trying to keep, yeah, in check all the way through as best I can. So keep

things in balance. And I've found if I have got, yeah, over, I've over done something,

then it can take a few weeks actually of rebalancing consciously. For me, yeah, exercise is one thing

that's very important to me. And okay, now I'm, we definitely a bit on the obsessed side of my triathlon.

But even before that, just going out for long walks, yeah, taking care, eating, getting good

sleep, I think sleep is something that is massively underestimated. And being able to block out time

and prioritize, I suppose the thing about looking after yourself, it's the instruction on aircraft,

isn't it, about putting your own oxygen mask on before helping others? And I think that's

quite a good analogy that if you're not looking after yourself, you're not going to be in the right

state to look after and be aware of others. Indeed. And I see that on the dating front.

People say online dating is like having another job. If you haven't got your resources and you

haven't done your emotional attention, and you're looking at dating other people, you won't be doing

it from a really clear space where you can clearly choose. Much more likely to be knocked about by

the slings and arrows, you know? Yes, yes. And if you're really centered.

So how would you say, I mean, let's just check out, we got all the signs of overwhelm. We got them

named now here. Yes, I think so. I think the summary would be, listen to your body and pay

attention to any little signs that things are out quite as they should be. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's interesting because both of you and I are from the north. And I've noticed something

recently because there are just things we were talking about before we recorded.

That for me, coming from South Yorkshire, it's almost considered, I think, shameful for a woman

to care for herself. And it's been a big deal for me in terms of looking after my physical self.

Takes to 65 to wake up to that, that could be important. So please everybody else that's listening.

Do it when you're 30. I think most people who are younger tend to have a more of an attitude

towards fitness. That's what I see. But certainly my generation.

Yeah, hopefully. I think again, it's finding what works for you individually and

okay, for me, exercise is important. I think there's enough scientific evidence out there

that exercise is really important. But it might be meditation,

yeah, going to the theater or crocheting. It's finding something that allows you to recharge

and create. Yeah, my partner is an athlete from former times. He used to be one of those guys that

could just do a back flip from standing. And we find our connection because he likes to do golf

now and exercises that way. And it gets his 16,000 steps in a day. Together, we do dancing.

And it's a modern drive. So it's quite fast. And there's lots of movements where your arms are

over your head and twisting. So it's lots of good stuff for your shoulders. It's great. It's really

great. And it's slightly aerobic. I don't think it's like running up a hill, but it's just slightly

aerobic. Yeah, I think it's the thing is that even gardening or, you know, it's finding something

that you enjoy that I think you're getting multiple benefits from is what it's about in my mind.

So yeah. Yeah, yes, something that allows you to express yourself in what's the most natural way

to you? Yeah. Yeah. So if you get into really serious overwhelm, what ways would you give to us to

really regain control and calm? Yeah, I think the things that I've learned, and again, I started this

when I was in this production management role. And it's the times when you feel your head is

jangling with all the things and worries and all the things you've got to do. And I found,

and I still can get that happening from time to time, hopefully not too often, but it does happen,

is to get a piece of paper. If the situation is not too serious, I might get away with a little

record card or an A5 sheet of paper. If it's really bad, I might need a flip chart size of paper.

And it's grabbing a cup of tea or a coffee, sitting down with this bit of paper and doing a brain

dumb, I love mind maps, and just getting all of the things out of the head and onto the paper.

And it doesn't need to take long, you know, obviously, if there's lots going on, but probably 15 minutes

or something should be enough to get the bulk of things out there. And then go away from that.

You can come back and then test. Would the world stop really if I didn't do any of those things?

So you can go through and whilst there might be, you know, could be financial implications,

reputation and so on, it's being really, really harsh. And so would the world actually stop?

Is there life and death? Now some people will be involved in life and death decisions, but most

of us are not. And I think it's getting that perspective and really testing it is important

because then you can start to home in on, okay, out of all this stuff that's on the paper,

what are perhaps three or four things that really I do need to concentrate on. Now,

one thing I've found is, well, I've got to that situation and thinking, oh goodness, you know,

I promised to do this for someone. Actually pick up the phone and check with them. They look,

I'm a bit of a tricky spot here. Would you mind if I delayed that? And you know, the typical response

back is, oh, yeah, no problem. We're behind our end. So no problem. Now I haven't had to do that

very often at all, thankfully, but it's suddenly a big sigh of relief, you think, oh, and you could

easily, I could have worked myself up into a right long other thinking I've absolutely got to do this.

Well, just check, pick the phone up. And I think that's something perhaps my impression is the

younger generation less likely just to pick the phone up. I'm not sure whether that's valid or

not, but that's my impression. And I think there's a lot to be had from just pick the phone up and

speak to somebody. So out of all that, it's it's homing in on the sort of three or four things that,

okay, now these are priorities. And then being able to break them down. And this was something

again, chaos of production management, finding five minutes a day to do something to make tomorrow

better. Now, it's hard, I think, to fight to really be honest and say, I hadn't had five minutes. It

will happen, does happen. But five minutes is enough to make one phone call to send one email,

even just to put a timer on and think for five minutes about, okay, what do I really need to do

here? And that if you the ability to break something down into those tiny chunks, I found really

empowering because I think the one thing that is happening, I envisaged that as bit as being in

this spin cycle on a washing machine, you know, you're just being flung around and you just want

to scream, you know, please would somebody stop. And it's a horrible feeling. Again, thankfully,

doesn't happen that often, but it can. Whereas doing one thing and sending one email, even if

it's a midnight or something, I think, okay, I've done something that's just nudging things forward.

There's change in feeling, I've found, and the sense that actually I am not totally in control,

but I am doing something to make it better is phenomenal. And doing that consistently,

it doesn't have to be 100%, but 80, 90% at the time, in over a three month period, it's amazing

what what progress can be achieved. So that to me is a sort of baseline. Things are really tough.

How do we get back in control? That's mind map, really test the priorities and then five minutes a day.

Yeah. Yeah. How can I take the pressure off? How can I keep things simple? How can I take a breath?

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So how can we build resilience and stop ourselves getting into this sort of

state in the first place? I think, I mean, I take learning from my triathlon experiences in part,

and other things that I do that actually, I mean, one of the first triathans I did,

the swim, I mean, it's always, I find the swim is always going to have surprises and challenges,

but this one at Eastbourne, there was a massive current in the sea. I think it's probably normal

there, but it was just made life very hard. And I realized once I had done some sea swimming,

I needed to get out more and do more practice in those sort of conditions or harsher conditions.

So I think it's same with, well, you do it in a harsh condition, but safe environment, I mean,

crazy. For safer speaking, public speaking, I've been a member of Toastmasters International for

over 20 years, and that I call my learning laboratory, because it's an environment where I can test

things out, put myself under pressure, they have speech contests, all sorts of things,

do you think, well, why do you need more pressure? But it's being able to handle that.

Then when you go into a, let's say, really a more important situation, work-related situation,

important presentation, you've just got that much more in hand. You know how to control your nerves,

and say with the triathlon, you know, I know if there are waves and my face is being splashed,

or I can't see where I'm going. It's like, okay, oh, that's like that. I've had that before.

Here's how I dealt with it. So it just gives you that confidence that I've been through

worse situations I can keep through. Maybe I need to go slower. Maybe I'm not going to be

fast enough, but at least I can be safe, and I can maintain progress.

Yeah, that's brilliant.

So tell me what it is that you particularly would like to offer to people and where they can

find you. Okay, thanks very much. So I work with people one-to-one on mentoring, and perhaps that's

about how to improve their business, get their plans clear. I'm passionate believer in 90-day

action plans just to give that focus. I also do lunch and learns and interactive workshops

in companies, and I love to speak at events, whether it's networking events for business owners,

women's groups. I find the overcome, overwhelm message goes down well and resonates with

particularly a lot of women. So I'm up for talking to all sorts of groups and spreading

experience. I've had some experience at the cold phase, as it were, and I think I love to help people.

So probably the best way to contact me is through my website. It's Hilary Briggs,

Hilary with 1L, Hilary Briggs.co.uk, and yeah, I've also got a TEDx speech that's out there as

well. It should show up if you Google me. And yeah, mobile, yeah, can perhaps put in the notes to the

programme. Yes, that's probably easier. Thank you. Well, thank you Hilary. This has been really

lovely. It feels to me like it sort of touches all the points of a woman's life. No, because many

women are really working hard to keep their head above water in the corporate world. And many

really looking to improve their health and fitness, really tuning into their bodies, really sort of

dovetailing all of that with their emotional and physical, psychological means. So thank you so

much for bringing this perspective. No, a pleasure. And I think it's so important that we all learn

to be the best version of ourselves that we can. And that's handling all of the shocks that

lies throws at us. Otherwise, we're not in a position to do the things to support other people

and families and so on. So it's crucial. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Revolutionize Your Love Life.

I'd like to know what has been your biggest takeaway from this conversation.

Do take a minute and share this with us and visit us on our Facebook page.

You can connect with me personally on my email at Heather@HeatherGarbert.com.

If you can think of someone who will benefit from listening to this podcast,

please do share it with them. If you have any feedback on how I can improve it,

please do reach out to me as I'm always keen to learn more.

Thank you so much again for listening. And we'll meet again on the next episode of

Revolutionize Your Love Life.

You are good. You are good in my heart.