In at the deep end with Gary Bridgeman

On the podcast, I talk to Madeleine Black.Madeleine has overcome a lot of trauma in her life. Violently gang-raped when she was just thirteen years old, and then raped three more times before the age of eighteen.Madeleine spent years struggling with her memories of that first attack trying to undo the damage and find her voice.Trying different therapeutic modalities and even psychedelic drugs Madeleine found a route to inner peace through forgiveness.After sharing her story publicly for the first time in September 2014 she realised that her voice and words are now her strength and she will continue to speak out against sexual violence for all those who can’t find their voice yet.Her first book Unbroken: One Woman's Journey to Rebuild a Life Shattered by Violence. A True Story of Survival and Hope is harrowing but a must-read.

On the podcast, I talk to Ruchi Singh.Ruchi was an inspiring guest as she talked about her story of overcoming domestic abuse and her journey of using her story to help serve others.On the podcast, we talk spirituality, Yoga, meditation and of course the moment when her life completely changed.Her ex-husband came home drunk and held a butchers knife at her throat shouting that he will kill her.At that moment she asked herself the question ‘was I born to be a statistic?’The answer to that question at that point and every day since then has been a resounding no.She gave herself permission to share her voice her has given a voice to others.

On the podcast, I talk to Jason Shiers.Wow, what a conversation!I instantly connected with Jason over similar backgrounds of feeling lost, not good enough and using drugs to solve our internal feelings. We also shared the experience of losing our fathers as young boys.Jason struggled with himself for his whole life. Hew grew up overweight, miserable and lonely.The loss of his father at a very young age shaped his life more than he could ever know. While is still sad, he is incredibly grateful for that experience, because it has made him the man that his and a much better parent than he could have ever imagined being.He spent a lot of his life in despair, thinking things had gotten a little better but only then getting worse.After 10 years of therapy as a client and practising therapist he felt like nothing would work.Coming across the principles and the work of Micheal Neill led to a profound shift in his internal experience and understood how life really works.There were so many parallels between my life and Jason I came away from our conversation feeling inspired and motivated about my own journey with the principles.

On the podcast, I talk to Kiran Bedi.Kiran was such an inspirational person and taught me so much in such a short space of time on this podcast.After this podcast I really learnt to lean into surrendering more and conceding to my inner wisdom and guide.Kiran recently published her first book titled ‘Overcoming Fear and Failure - A practical guide for women who overthink’.The book is based on her own journey to self realisation in overcoming her own fears and failures. She describes her self as a firm believe in following ones heart because her best work happens when her heart and head are in alignment,She recently said goodbye to a career in the IT industry to follow her heart’s passion of being a content creator, writer and an educator.

On the podcast, I talk to Jordon Gross.Jordon guides people to their Cloud Nine lives by helping them discover their true passions and purpose.He has guided startup founders as well as employees at Google and Amazon in overcoming uncertainty and discovering what it truly is that brings them meaning and fulfilment. I was blown away by Jordon’s presence, drive and passion. He was on the podcast undertaking a challenge to complete 90 podcasts in 90 days to promote his book on cloud nine moments.What was inspiring about this promotion drive was the book wasn’t even written yet and he was laying the groundwork before the book was published.He is also a best-selling author of a book called Getting COMFY: Your Morning Guide to Daily Happiness and a TEDx Speaker, and he has already founded multiple companies and organisations.

On the podcast, I talk to Kate Pennell.Kate is a life coach and top writer on creativity and productivity on Medium.She describes herself as a life-long creative, faith-following, gluten free, mum of three. Who loves people, loves life and energy, peace and balance. Beauty. Abundance. And is a beautiful, wonderful, glorious, kooky, work in progress.She is defiantly a pure energy and was a joy to talk to.She covered so many subjects in this podcast from creativity to build your coaching practice.Hope you enjoy listening to Kate as much as I did!

On the podcast, I talk to Jacquelyn Guderley. Jacquelyn is a social entrepreneur, advocate for gender equality and mental health. Jacquelyn is someone who I have admired for a long time and who I was lucky enough to coach. In 2013 she co-founded Stemettes, an award-winning social enterprise that inspires girls aged 5-22 to pursue careers in Science, Tech, Engineering & Maths (STEM) by running high impact, fun, tech-filled events. To date, Stemettes have worked with almost 40k girls around the globe.In 2016 she stood as a political candidate for the Women's Equality Party for the General London Assembly, believing that the current political climate wasn't taking the systemic disadvantages that women face in society seriously enough.In 2017 she launched "Salomé", a literary magazine for emerging female writers, to address the gender imbalance in publishing and to give amateur female writers the platform, confidence and experience to get their writing published.She is also someone who has episodic depression and has been depressed five times in six years and in these periods finds her self withdrawing from the world only to awaken again with a renewed passion for life. Her recent endeavours have been to launch MNTL HLTH to help break the silence on mental health creating events and activities to raise awareness in the mental health space.

On the podcast, I talk to James Roberts. He is an online training and nutrition coach but was an elite Paralympic athlete for just over a decade.James was born with a congenital disability called femoral dysplasia and a floating hip of the left leg as well as scoliosis of the spine.He grew up on a NATO base in S.H.A.P.E (Casteau), Belgium but now resides in Prestatyn, North Wales.He has been lucky enough over those years to have represented Great Britain at countless World Championships and 2 Paralympics Games (Beijing 2008 and London 2012) to just name a few.He started out in his sporting career as a swimmer, and progressed on to other Paralympic sports, such as rowing and sitting volleyball.He competed for Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, finishing fifth in the trunk and arm classification in adaptive rowing.He also competed for Great Britain at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, finishing 8th in the sitting volleyball. More recently he has begun playing wheelchair basketball for local side Rhyl Raptors.That’s an impressive resume.But James has also suffered from feelings of low self-worth around his body, and anxiety.As a teenager he would hide his disability avoiding wearing shorts in summer and would struggle to explain his disability to others.And a recent health scare found him struggling with anxiety. Through daily meditation, concentrating on his breathing to get in touch with his thoughts and emotions he has learned to see his thoughts just as thoughts passing through his mind.

On the podcast, I talk to Andy Hobson and we talk about his journey from rock star drummer to rock star mindfulness teacher.Andy started life as a drummer after following his dream to be a professional musician. But as he admits on the podcast he was always more concerned with the nature of the human experience constantly asking his school friends how they knew they were them.We talk about the most common myths of mindfulness, how he transformed his life from rockstar to mindfulness teacher and what is it really like playing to tens of thousands of people.Oh and a top tip on how to mindfully connect with a toddler having a tantrum.Now with over 77,000 followers on Insight Timer - The largest free library of guided meditations on earth with more than 20000 titles - Andy’s vision is to create a happier, kinder, more conscious world through teaching meditation.Since starting to teach meditation in 2010, he has helped millions of people around the world through his online guided meditations and courses.Andy draws upon many traditions, philosophies, therapeutic approaches and his personal meditation practice to teach how we can return to our true nature, free ourselves from the voice in our head and find lasting happiness, purpose and freedom.

Matt is a parental narcissistic abuse and childhood emotional neglect recovery expert.The recording of this episode was life-changing for me because it introduced me to the three principles of Mind, Consciousness and Thought.On the podcast, we talk about the effects of childhood narcissistic abuse and emotional neglect on your adult life.We have a discussion about the power of the three principles to change your life and how a simple understanding of the three principles has changed people beyond all recognition.

Rachelle is a PhD student and one of 80 women selected globally for the 2018 Homeward Bound women in science leadership initiative.In the episode, we talk about her journey and experiences as a woman in STEM, connecting with life and how she combines a love for art with science.

On October 8th 2013, Brian experienced his first day clean after 15 years of chronic heroin addiction. Instead of perceiving his addiction as a failure, he embraced a second chance at life and went to university to study the complexities of human behaviour.Since then, he has become a writer, fully funded PhD student, lecturer in Trinity College and University College Dublin, self-development coach, business owner, and motivational speaker for high-performance and personal growth.With a relentless belief that we are what we think, Brian’s mission is to show people that change is possible, demonstrating actionable steps through a lived experience.

In this episode, I talk to Chris Winson, author, psychology student and a huge fan of compassion focussed therapy as a tool for overcoming depression and improving mental well-being.Chris publishes a post each Friday on his thoughts as he learns to accept and live with depression. Writing helps him as he tries to understand the beautifully complex and awesome mind that we all have.You can also follow Chris on Twitter @chisi_98. You can also join in, if you like, on Twitter with the hashtag #365daysofcompassion and post a daily compassionate message, quote or article to help spread some compassion, both to yourself and others.