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Real Talk with Tina and Ann
Tina and Ann met as journalists covering a capital murder trial, 15 years ago. Tina has been a tv and radio personality and has three children. Ann has a master's in counseling and has worked in the jail system, was a director of a battered woman's shelter/rape crisis center, worked as an assistant director at a school for children with autism, worked with abused kids and is currently raising her three children who have autism. She also is autistic and was told would not graduate high school, but as you can see, she has accomplished so much more. The duo share their stories of overcoming and interview people who are making it, despite what has happened. This is more than just two moms sharing their lives. This is two women who have overcome some of life's hardest obstacles. Join us every Wednesday as we go through life's journey together. There is purpose in the pain and hope in the journey.
Real Talk with Tina and Ann
Healing & Balancing Mind, Body, and Soul with Zoe Smith
Zoe Smith's transformation from policy-maker to holistic healer represents a journey many secretly yearn for but few dare to undertake. After years shaping national healthcare policy in the UK, including work on the groundbreaking "Caring for Our Future" white paper, Zoe found herself trapped in the familiar cycle of 70-hour workweeks and diminishing returns on her wellbeing.
The turning point came dramatically – sitting under her desk, overwhelmed with tears, Googling symptoms of depression. Rather than simply medicating her way through, Zoe chose a different path, taking a courageous five-month pause to reconnect with herself through walking, meditation, yoga, and counseling. What began as a seemingly career-disrupting break became the foundation for an entirely new direction.
Her subsequent professional choices reflect a profound shift in priorities – moving from systemic change to individual impact as a mental capacity advocate, rescuing a failing home care service, and eventually taking the bold leap to teach in China with just two suitcases and an open heart. This decision, made long before the pandemic would reshape global perspectives on health, exposed her to traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, and energy-based healing approaches that deeply resonated with her emerging understanding of holistic wellbeing.
Throughout our conversation, Zoe reveals how Eastern approaches to health – from public parks filled with all generations practicing tai chi to efficient healthcare systems integrating traditional and modern medicine – contrast sharply with Western models. She shares practical wisdom about everyday healing tools like essential oils, sound therapy tuned to 432 hertz (the healing frequency), and the transformative power of simply connecting with nature.
Now as founder of Your Vitality Coaching, Zoe offers a unique blend of yoga, reiki, sound therapy, hypnotherapy, and life coaching – all informed by her remarkable journey across professional domains and cultural traditions. Her story reminds us that sometimes our greatest breakdowns lead to our most meaningful breakthroughs, and that courage often means acknowledging fear while refusing to be immobilized by it.
Curious about incorporating traditional healing practices into your life? Explore this episode to discover how small, intentional rituals might transform your wellbeing in ways conventional medicine alone cannot address.
Welcome to Real Talk with Tina and Anne. I am Anne, and today's guest has lived a life full of powerful pivots and purpose. Zoe Smith's story is one of reinvention from classroom to government halls to deep healing and now into a life that helps others heal too. Helps others heal too. Born in Yorkshire, uk, where she currently lives, zoe has traveled across the world and through some truly transformative chapters. She started out as a religious teacher, then moved into adult social care, rising quickly to help shape national policies, including the UK's Caring for Our Future white paper aimed at reforming the entire care system. She later took on a major role with NHS England, which is national health services for those of us who don't know focused on mental health policy. But after years of high-pressure work, zoe did something rare she pressed pause. She walked away from the system to reconnect with herself, and that's where everything changed.
Speaker 1:Through walking, yoga, meditation and counseling, zoe began her own healing journey. And it didn't stop there. She became a mental capacity advocate, helped rescue a failing home care service and then fully stepped into the world of wellness. She spent two years living and teaching in China, traveled across Southeast Asia and fell in love with traditional healing practices along the way Now as the founder of your Vitality Coaching. Zoe brings together everything she's learned, offering a blend of yoga, reiki, sound therapy, qhht, personal training, hypnotherapy and life coaching to help people heal and thrive mind, body and soul. Zoe, welcome to the podcast. We are so thrilled to have you here to dive into your incredible story.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, this is a first for us.
Speaker 1:We've never had someone from the UK. Our systems and policies are very different here, but there is one thing in common across the globe and that is mind, body and soul transformation. You know there were many things that shaped you to become the master, teacher and coach that you are today, but you've worked in government, studied religion and now run your vitality coaching. From your time working in adult social care, what did you learn about the challenges in the system and how has that shaped the way you see healing and wellbeing today?
Speaker 2:I think when I was working in workforce development for adult social care, that was my role in local government. And when I moved into a national role, and I think at that time I had a really good overview of what good practice looked like in that sector and I think I was quite up to date on all of the best practices both in England and some of the other countries around the world. We were able to, for example, look at Christchurch in New Zealand. After the earthquake, christchurch did an extensive remodel of their health and social care system and they were able to really integrate it. So it was amazing to see things like that.
Speaker 2:And then when I dropped down to a grassroots level, I very quickly realised that everything that I'd seen at a national level that was considered good practice although there were pockets of that, it was actually quite dependent upon postcode as to where that good practice was available.
Speaker 2:It wasn't available right across the national offering. So I think I had a very aspirational and optimistic view of what could be achieved from the sector to support people's health and wellbeing. And then, as I started to work on the frontline, I realised that actually in a lot of cases that wasn't happening. It was hugely dependent on funding and different areas of the country, and then, over time, as funding has dwindled and the economic situation has changed, that decline has just got worse. So, more than ever now, people are turning towards alternative options. In the past, I think people weren't aware of alternatives so much, and I think now, because they're so desperate to improve the health and so frustrated at waiting times and availability, they are much more open to trying different approaches, and so that's been interesting and, I suppose, for myself. I was able to use different approaches at different points in my life and they've always worked for me, and so I've been able to share that and bring that understanding to the people that I'm working with in your vitality coaching.
Speaker 1:I think it's amazing. Your knowledge is so vast, and you have really taken everything along the way and just taken it with you on this journey. I think that that is so beautiful. I think that that is so beautiful. One of the things that happened to you, though, is that you spent a time like a lot of us do where you were just working in the corporate world. You were working up to 70 hours a week. I mean, what was going on with you back then?
Speaker 2:I am quite an ambitious and determined person, I would say, and sometimes, when channeled in the right direction, that can be amazing. And other times I think, especially when I was younger I couldn't find the off switch. I didn't think about myself, I didn't think about my own personal needs and self-care, and I was just so focused on achieving what I wanted to out of my career and making sure that the projects that I was managing were achieving their goals. And, of course, whenever you're managing a project in the corporate world, there's always deadlines to meet, and they're never they're always tight deadlines, you know, you don't have the luxury of hanging around.
Speaker 2:So I think I got really caught up in that and there have been cycles where that's repeated itself in my life. So when I was working back in corporate, that was the case. I was working a lot of hours a week, and then, of course, you learn from it, you move on, you think, right, I'm not going to do that again. And then suddenly you find yourself doing it again. So when I came back into teaching much more recently, only in the last few years when I came back into teaching in the UK, when I came back to the UK there, I found myself again working 70 hours a week oh, wow, okay teaching.
Speaker 2:However, when you've done it once and you know it doesn't work, you you're much more able to step up and hang on a minute self-care. Where have my boundaries gone? This, this isn't working, and um, and I was able to step out of that again.
Speaker 1:It teaches you lessons, for sure, um, but only if you listen to them yeah, I mean you have to listen to your body and your soul and your mind and everything that encompasses us and figure out what works for us. And when you were at the height of your career, you know you made a bold choice and taking a five month pause and that's a lesson for all of us, I think to know that it's OK to take care of ourselves. What did you learn about yourself during that time of pause?
Speaker 2:It was a really interesting time in my life actually, and it shaped who very much, who I am today, reshaped the direction that life went. I ended up. I used to work from home a few days a week when I was in that job, and I remember one day finding myself sitting underneath my desk crying and suddenly thought to myself hang on a minute. You're sitting under your desk and you're crying, there's something not right. Zoe and I crawled out from under the desk and Googled symptoms of depression and as I looked down the list I could tick pretty much all of them. So that was sort of what kickstarted it, because I wasn't listening to my body fully and I wasn't listening to what was going on. And so my body went right, you're going to stop. And the universe made me stop. So I did so. It was an, an enforced stop, and then I was able to take a step back.
Speaker 2:Um, I had counseling and I was adamant that I didn't want to go on to antidepressants. Um, I wanted to find other ways. So even back then, I really wanted that self understanding and the ability to work through things, and it was through through doing that, um, through the counselling, I was able to understand what was going on with me and at the time I thought it was a job that I was in, that just I wasn't happy in my job, wasn't happy in the team. Um, I blamed that. But actually through the counselling, as I dug a lot deeper, I uncovered all sorts things going back to childhood, all sorts of different things, and when I unpicked it all I realised that actually not only was I not happy in my job at the time, I wasn't happy in my marriage and various other aspects of life. So the counselling helped me work through all of that and understand myself on different levels that I'd never considered before. It's allowed me to free myself of a lot of the ideas that I had about myself and to actually sift through and think about who I am, and to actually sift through and think about who I am. But also, alongside that, I was able to get back to nature and get out walking every day because I'd taken time out of work so I was able to get out, go walking.
Speaker 2:I discovered meditation. I had discovered yoga quite a few years before, but I didn't have a regular yoga practice. It was just something I knew about and sort of dipped in and out of every now and then. But whilst I was off with depression, I was really able to explore yoga and I discovered Ashtanga yoga at the time and I got really into it and I really found that the combination of the yoga, the meditation, getting out in nature and walking really helped me through the period of depression and anxiety I was facing. So I was able to come through that and through that whole process.
Speaker 2:That was when I decided actually I don't want to be working at a national level anymore. I think I felt like I'd learned and done as much as I wanted to at that level and I wanted to move much more into a grassroots, local kind of level where I was actually working with people and making a difference, and so that's what I did. I went back to work. I retrained as an independent mental capacity advocate, which in England is someone who works with people who have been assessed as lacking mental capacity and we help them to make decisions about health care and where they're living and those kind of things. And for people who are in care, who don't have family or whose family can't visit, then we're able to go in and check on them, make sure all their needs are being met and that they're being cared for well, and I really enjoyed that role. It was really nice to be able to give back and do something for people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would think that that was a real blessing, because I've always found when you are in roles like that, you actually get back more. You do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and again, it makes you because you're giving. It makes you focus on the energy exchange. So if you're giving too much of yourself, you can't do it for long, so you burn yourself out. You can't pour from that empty cup. So it really makes you constantly aware of what you're doing and making sure that you're looking after yourself as well. It really reinforced boundaries for me.
Speaker 1:You know, that's really important because I've worked in fields where I was a director of a battered woman's shelter and things like that, and it's always really important to check back with yourself and we used to have like meetings at the end of our shifts and just asking each other you know how are you, and things like that, because that was really important to be able to leave the job where we needed to leave it and be okay internally before we ended up leaving to go home, to our families or whatever, because some of those things don't leave you and if you just continue to have that build up and build up and you not process it and work through it, it can really become a problem.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely yeah. Having that support in place for each other as workers, it's really important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now you also. You have a love for religious studies, so I was really curious to find out how that happened and the journey that you took there.
Speaker 2:I think I've always been really curious about people and what shapes how we think, what shapes what we believe, those kinds of things. And it just so happened at school that RE religious education was one of my favourite lessons and I was interested in it. And so, as I was sort of working through school and you get to choose what you'd like to do for your GCSEs and then you get to choose what you like to do for your A-levels, that was always a subject that I really enjoyed being nosy about cultures, traditions and then understanding what shaped them. Nosy about cultures, traditions and and then understanding what shaped them. So I decided that I wanted to study that at university and I wanted to teach it because it's as I had a passion for it. But a lot of young people don't have an interest in it. They see it as boring, they see it maybe as being forced to become religious, and it's not about that. It's not about following a religious route. It's about looking at religions from a sort of sociological perspective or a philosophical perspective, um.
Speaker 2:So I studied it for my degree and I was really fortunate to, whilst I was studying, to be able to go to india, um in in my second year and to be able to go to India in my second year and to be able to travel and study out there, and that gave me a real thirst for more. I just loved my time in India. It was amazing and to be able to experience the Indian culture and India opened my eyes to so many things, because there isn't just one particular religion um, that's grown there over time. There's there's a lot of different religions and traditions and how that has shaped Indian life and society was just fascinating to me. It was like nothing I'd experienced at the time before. So yeah, that that led me to to teach religious studies for a few years. But that interest I think the interest in people and cultures and the opportunity to travel has influenced where I took that later in life. But it's also meant that I have a real keen interest in people and I still have that interest. I'm a bit nosy.
Speaker 1:I like to know about the people and I still have that interest. I'm a bit nosy.
Speaker 2:I like to know know about the people that I meet and build relationships, and then, sure, and what in what I'm doing now, that really helps me, look at how I can help them, if I can help them, or, um, how we can work together. So it's been really interesting to do that.
Speaker 1:What was it like to actually live in Asia for you? I mean, that would have been such a different culture, and to be able to just pick up and go there and live in a different culture. What was that like?
Speaker 2:I think I know for a fact my family think thought I was absolutely crazy to even consider living in a different country, and it was something I'd really wanted to do After I'd graduated. I had applied to go out to China and teach English with the British Council and I'd got a place to do it, but unfortunately they were unable to organize my placement in time, so I ended up not doing that and I don't know, know, maybe there was a seed in the back of my mind, um, that never went away, and so it just so happened. In 2019, I was able to go and fulfill a dream and, um, yes, it was a a massive difference. Um, and at first it was a big culture shock.
Speaker 2:Oh, I bet, and it was probably my problem solving skills. Um was so sharp by the end of it. Um, it taught me such a lot about life, and not only did I learn a lot about China and the Chinese traditions. I learned a lot about Asia. I was able to travel in different countries whilst I was out there, but also meeting with other expats from all around the world. I have a few friends from South Africa, america, canada, russia all over the world.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:I would have never had that if I hadn't done it. So not only did I learn about China, I got to learn about all sorts of other people's traditions and languages, and it was amazing.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's just so beautiful. And how did their culture influence your understanding of healing and human experience? Your understanding of healing and human experience?
Speaker 2:When I went out to China just before I'd gone, I'd had two car crashes in the UK. Neither were my fault.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 2:One in 2017, someone had run into the back of my car in 2017. And I've always been very into my fitness, so at the time I'd been training hard in the gym and I just thought that the pain that I was getting in my neck and shoulders after that was down to training really hard, because, by coincidence, I'd been doing back and shoulders in the gym that morning and then the pain hadn't gone away, and about six months later I was finally diagnosed with whiplash but by that point it had.
Speaker 2:I'd carried on training in the gym through it. I was in agony, it was awful. So I ended up with physiotherapy and before that had healed somebody else ran into the back of my car and so that then made the whiplash worse really before it had even had a chance to get better. So on the NHS we have long waiting lists in England so I'd needed an MRI scan and I'd been on the waiting list for that, Eventually got an MRI scan a few months before I went to China and that had come back okay. They'd identified it was whiplash and there was some damage to my neck, but nobody had really mentioned exactly what that was. So I'd had more physio right up to go into China and it sort of evened out. It was doing all right and I got to China and the mattresses in China are quite firm compared to what I was used to from the UK. So I'd been out there a few weeks and I lost feeling in my right thumb and my right hand.
Speaker 2:So I ended up having to use the Chinese health system and I was, I remember, going in to see the doctor and the doctor said to me you had, as a foreigner, I had to take my passport. So I'd gone in, sat down giving him my passport and he looked at it and he and he sat up and he was like I'm so sorry. And I was like oh oh, and in my head I'm thinking oh no, have I come to the wrong place? Can't he treat me because I'm British? And he went, you, you from England, and I was like yes, and he said I'm so sorry, and I was thinking oh, no, what what? He said, right, and he said you have the amazing NHS. Our health system is not so good. And I said oh, oh, it's fine. And in my head I was thinking our NHS isn't so good anymore either. So whatever, just let's see where we go.
Speaker 2:Anyway, let's say that I went in at half past eight in the morning. About two and a half three hours later I walked out of that hospital having had x-rays, a diagnosis, I'd seen an orthopedic consultant, I'd had a physiotherapy session and I had the next eight physiotherapy sessions booked in all in three hours. Now in England that doesn't happen. I had to wait months for an MRI. The waiting time to see a GP is two or three weeks sometimes. Quite often you don't even get to see a doctor, you see the nurse practitioner. So I was blown away by their healthcare system. And then after that, as I lived in China longer and got to grips with how things work and I made Chinese friends and some of them said to me oh, you need to have you considered going to see the bone setter. Well, the very term bone setter terrified me.
Speaker 2:It doesn't sound like somebody who was going to help me, but off I went to see the bone setter and he was amazing and basically it's sort of the traditional Chinese version of a chiropractor.
Speaker 2:But, he was able to really bring relief to my back chiropractor, so he was able to really bring relief to my back um, and then I discovered acupuncture and different herbal treatments and I started to understand how the chinese um view energy and the meridians within the body. Um, and I started to see similarities because at the same time I was practicing yoga out there and I practiced two types of yoga. I did hot yoga with a Chinese studio and I did hatha yoga with an Indian instructor. So it was really interesting because I was getting the understanding from traditional Chinese medicine about meridians and energy flow and I knew that that linked with tai chi. And then I was getting the knowledge of hatha yoga and how that works with nadis, which is the indian energy channels that's referred to in yoga and ayurveda, and I could see the similarities between the two and it started to come to life for me. I started to see energy rather than just the physical body, so that it was fascinating this is.
Speaker 1:This is very fascinating to me just to even listen to it. I mean, it would just be amazing to, because, you know, in our society we don't have all those things integrated into our everyday.
Speaker 2:so I mean it's really interesting to see how they do channels and you know, pressing different parts of your body in.
Speaker 2:In ayurvedic tradition they've got marma points, um, and you see, when people are meditating, often you'll see them using different hand positions and so touching thumb to index finger or thumb to ring finger or they're pressing marma points and each one of those does different things within the energy channels and just it just fascinated me. I used to see grandparents coming to pick the children up from school in China and they'd be sitting there whilst they were waiting, sort of moving energy in their bodies and it was just a whole different world to me because, as you say, in the West we're not taught that as children. If, as an adult, you have an interest in it, you can find out about it, but it isn't taught to children. I really believe it should be. Children connect much more naturally with energy up to the age of seven. If we were to teach children some of the practices of using their breath, working with energy, from a really young age, I think we'd solve a lot of the mental health issues that we have over in the West.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really believe that as well, because you know there's so many unhealthy things that our kids take in every day and you become who you are as an adult, as a child. I mean those things are those basic things that we take in, and if it becomes something that you just did every day as a kid, of course you would do that, and I think that that also has something to do with, of course, what you just said the mental health, but also the physical health as well. I mean a lot of them in China, in Asia. You know they live a lot longer than we do, and I think that that has a lot to do with it.
Speaker 2:And they live a lot longer with a lot less long-term conditions. The diet and the exercise out there. It has historically been so much better we eat a lot of processed foods in the West been so much better. We eat a lot of processed foods in the west, absolutely. Of course they're available over in asia, and more so now than ever. So whether that's something that will change um time will tell. But sort of historically they have eaten a lot healthier diet than than we have in the west and their approach to exercise.
Speaker 2:Like Like in China there's massive parks everywhere. Even though you might be in the middle of a huge city, you don't have to walk far to get to another park and as you walk on an evening or in an afternoon there'll be massive dance classes going on Tai Chi classes, all different types of martial arts and you'll see all the grandmas there dancing and um young people doing sport. And it's just like we don't have that in england.
Speaker 1:There's always complaints in the town I live in that there's nothing for the children to do, and yet in china, there they had it right and and our kids have gone to being inside playing video games, watching TV, doing a lot of unhealthy things, eating the processed foods that you said. Really it becomes because everybody's doing it and that's just kind of like a cliche kind of thing, but everybody's doing it and so it's kind of hard to take your kids from everything else that's going on around them and try to teach them a lot of these healthy things. But when you're in a country where everybody's doing that kind of healthy living, then it would be passed on from generation to generation and I love that they are doing it from generation to generation and they get to do it all together doing it from generation to generation and they get to do it all together Exactly.
Speaker 2:And you'd see, like you'd see maybe grandma and granddad at a dance class, and then you'd see mom and dad with the children, and the children would be there riding bikes and on their scooters flying kites, whatever they were doing.
Speaker 2:And I know like in my job in the UK I work in a gym alongside what I do with your Vitality Coaching, and a lot of the clients that I see will be middle-aged through to elderly who have been sedentary for years and a lot of the issues they're experiencing health-wise now are a direct result of that. And a lot of them say, oh, I don't think the gym's for me, I don't for me, I don't think I want to come to the gym. And then they get there and they realize what the environment is and how it works and they say they wish they'd done it years ago, whereas in China it's just a natural part. The grandchildren see the grandparents dancing or doing Tai Chi, mum and dad might go off for a swim or a run and it's just normal. Everybody's active and they live in big cities, but it's still normal that work-life balance is much better out there as well, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, our balance is really off here. The work environment people are just expected to work way more many hours than they are to take care of themselves or their family or to reconnect with their family, so the whole system needs changed. When they talk about going to a four-day work week here, I think that would really be amazing, and especially for kids with school too, for them to have less busy and more focus on self and taking care of self. I think that that's really important. I think it's a beautiful thing that you have again taken everything that you've learned and now you're trying to help other people. During one of your chapters in your life, you helped fix a failing home care service and turned it around in under five months. By the way, I mean, you don't do anything halfway. What was that experience like for you, and how did it help you realize your purpose and your mission?
Speaker 2:Managing the home care service for me was a hugely immersive experience. I had to come out of working nationally, I had my overview of what I thought good practice was and I went into to manage this home care service that had been inspected by the care quality commission, the CQC, as and it had been identified as failing. There were there were huge concerns, and so we'd been sort of given targets to reach and clear plan in place of what needed improving. We worked very closely with the local authority safeguarding service and the police. So my first thing was to get the staff trained up how I believed they should be trained. So within the management team we began with the management team, made sure that everybody was on the same page with their training, and then I delivered the training to the staff and I made sure that every member of staff went through the training program so that at the end of it everybody knew what was expected and nobody could say I didn't know that.
Speaker 2:And at the same time I put myself out out on care. I went out with the team. They saw me delivering care to the standard that I'd trained them to deliver. So they knew that I knew what I was doing and I wasn't just telling them to do it, um, I checked their note sheets to make sure they were recording notes and if anybody wasn't, I was bringing them back into the office to go through what was going wrong and why and and gave them that support.
Speaker 2:They all had regular supervision meetings, um, the type of meetings that you mentioned earlier where you sit down with your team and talk about any tough cases or how you're feeling. They had very regular chance to do that, so I ensured that they were all on the same page. There was a lot of paperwork to put in place, but we got there and CQC came back in to inspect us after about four and a half five months and we went from having serious concerns up to being inspected as good, considered good, and the local authority was satisfied that we were a good service and started to refer more clients to us and the police stepped down. Yeah, it was amazing. And it was amazing to see the staff grow in confidence. They lacked confidence. They hadn't had the proper training.
Speaker 2:So they were sort of doing what they thought was right and, in some cases, were making poor decisions. So they felt empowered that they were doing the right things. They were bringing problems to us instead of us looking for them. Um, I met with all the service users and I made sure that they all had a good quality care plan in place that looked at what their needs were and what their wishes were because sometimes those two things are different and I involved the family in those discussions as well so that we were making sure everybody was everybody's wishes were covered.
Speaker 2:Um, and I remember meeting with service users the first time. I'd go to each individual service users house and people would say we're not very happy because this didn't happen and that didn't happen, and we don't like this and we don't like that. And then the second or third visits, a few months apart, I was getting oh yeah, we really like such a body. We'd like her all the time and we like this and we like, and they would ring us up in the office and and give good feedback instead of ringing up to complain. We were getting good feedback and it just felt so nice. It was tough, it was very intense. It taught me a lot about leadership, I learned a lot about myself. Sure, it was very worth it. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:While I was listening to you talk, the word that kept going through my head was leadership. And I was like that's what a leader does you listen. You listen to their wants and their needs and you really pay attention and let them know that they're heard. And that's really important. I mean, if they don't feel heard or validated, you're not going to get much back. And the fact that then they were coming to you and they were telling you what their problems were because they knew that they would be heard, you know, I mean, I think that that's huge. So I'm sure right then, and there you're like, hey, I'm a good leader. Where you probably already knew this before this job, that you were a great leader and that you knew what your purpose was. And that was now the next stepping stone to where you were going.
Speaker 2:I think I'd always doubted myself as a leader. I didn't. When I was working nationally. It was sort of based around project management, if you like. My roles were very project based and so I knew that I was good at project management and organization, but I think I didn't see in that the leadership side of it that I was doing as well. Um, and it was there and I was doing it in just the same way that I did when I managed the care service. But it was that managing that care service that really brought home to me what leadership was. And some of the staff that worked for me whilst I was running that service are still in touch with me now, um years later, and I consider them friends now and they still come to me every now and then, some of them with questions and like and, and that's really nice. I feel really privileged for that.
Speaker 2:But then thinking about I've recently been thinking quite a bit about leadership and I started to think about, when I moved over to the deputy head role, the primary years program coordinator role that I had in China, and again I look at how I turned that team around because again when I got there, they'd been without a coordinator for some time.
Speaker 2:Staff morale was low. They felt like they weren't supported and again it was putting that support in place. But whilst I was doing that job, I was also teaching a class full time, so they could see that what I was asking them to do I was doing. So they couldn't say to me, I don't have time for this and I don't have time for that, because I was doing it. And not only was I doing it, I was managing them. So again we had a really strong team by the end of it, and I just remember a conversation with one member of staff and she had skipped two grade team meetings and I was coordinating the grade team meetings and I was coordinating the grade team meetings and I used to do a meeting with each grade.
Speaker 2:She hadn't been to two. So I bumped into her on the staircase one morning before school and I said oh, you didn't make it to our meeting the other day. I was really disappointed. I hoped you'd be there. I take it you had something really important to do. So she sort of doubled back and she said oh yeah, I was preparing a display for the kids.
Speaker 2:Kids work in the classroom and I was like, oh, that's really important. I'm glad you were doing that next week. Please can you find a different time to do that and please could you make sure you come to the grade meeting, because we'd really value your input and it's very important that you're there. Left it at that off, I went, and the following week she came to the meeting and from there on in she was an integral member of that team and she was. Her work was already amazing, but she was a brilliant member of staff. And then we had a night out a few months after and she took me to one side and she said miss zoe, you absolutely busted my that day. And she said I totally respect. And I was like she said it was just the way that you did it yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you did it in a very respectful way. You let her know that she was important and you just wanted her to be a part, because she had a lot to offer and you really wanted to hear her thoughts. And also another part of the leadership thing that I'm hearing when you're talking is that you know you were hands-on and you led by example. You know you weren't just talking and telling people this is what you need to do, and then you were gone, you disappeared. You were out there in the field. You were doing the things that you were asking them to do, and so they knew, for one thing, that you were experienced and you did know how to do it, but also that you were invested and you really meant what you were saying yeah, and I and I did used to check on them.
Speaker 2:Um, I didn't tell them that I was checking on them, but I was just constantly around and about, sure, and I was checking on them. But, um, I knew what was going on in my team and I think you really have to do that as a leader, because if you don, I knew what was going on in my team and I think you really have to do that as a leader, because if you don't know what's going on, that's when standards drop and things start to change. People cut corners because, as human beings, we're always looking for the easy options, we're always looking for the easier route and, um, and if no one's reminding us that that route is there for a reason, and if you're not following it, you're cutting corners and certain elements of it are dropping away, then, yeah, it just stops the service standards dropping. I think.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that you demonstrate great leadership skills, so I hope you never doubt yourself as a leader again, because you are definitely great at it. I want to ask you a question because while you were, I believe, in Asia, did COVID hit when you were over there and it shifted for us here, but I can't imagine what it did for you there. I know my entire life changed after that. So how did it change your life and did the pandemic play a role in reshaping your path or accelerating your pivot toward holistic healing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. It was a crazy time for all of us, all around the world, and the way that it happened. Nothing like that had ever happened in any of our lifetimes before not on a global scale like that and the way that it unfolded. Obviously, I was living in China at the time and it started in China and what I really. There were so many things I learned and so many things that I saw, and so it started in China, and, being a foreigner in China at the time, I couldn't understand fully from Chinese media how it was being presented and what was going on, so I was relying on translations and from expat news out there. I knew enough to get the gist of what was happening and we had. Almost immediately, we were wearing masks and things started to change. However, it was coming up towards Chinese New Year, when the first few cases had broken out, but at that point no one really knew what was unfolding, so they still allowed everyone to travel at Chinese New Year, which we all did. I went to Cambodia and I had a couple of weeks in Cambodia, and as I was out there, I was then able to look at the English speaking news around the world and I started to realize what was unfolding and then I started to think am I going to get back into China, Because they started talking about shutting borders and things like that? Anyway, I did get back into China, literally just before they shut the border, and from that moment we were into lockdown.
Speaker 2:Now, lockdown out there was a bit different to what I understand lockdown over here had been, but at that point the UK wasn't locked down, so we weren't encouraged to go out. We could go out on our own, and if you lived in a household where there was more than one person, then only one person could go out, either at a time or per day. I can't remember now. I know it was one at a time. I can't remember whether it was one per day, but I lived on my own so I could go out once every day. We could still go to the supermarket. A lot of the smaller shops and services were closed. Gyms and things like that were closed. The school that I worked in was closed.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, we and we very quickly went to online teaching in my school and I think I was the first teacher for our organization to go online and that was interesting. Everything in China was ready to go pretty quick. They've got the technology in place. I think they plan more carefully for stuff like this because they'd obviously had SARS out there previously, so they were ready to go quite quick and we were out of that tight lockdown by the end of March. Because on my phone the other day it pops up with memories on my photos and it popped up with me and two friends at a restaurant in China in 2020 at this particular time and I thought, oh, and then I thought to myself, gosh, actually we were out of lockdown pretty quick in China and then gradually opened up a bit more and I think by April we were allowed to come and go. By June, gyms and stuff were back open and by June we were back into school. Everyone was still wearing masks, but we were up and running and then I didn't experience lockdown again.
Speaker 2:However, during that month when we were locked down, it really gave me a lot of time and space. We were still teaching online, but not as many hours a week as we would have been when we were in school. So there was loads of time each day for me to exercise, to go out for a walk, to meditate, to read, and it was whilst I was doing that that I first discovered Dolores Cannon and the quantum healing hypnosis technique, and that was fascinating and it really opened my eyes to a whole new world and I discovered in more. I was doing yoga out there, so I was reading a lot more about Chinese medicine and Ayurveda and energy, and so it did that. That time was probably a refocus of my mind for when I left China and I stayed in China until June 2021. Stayed in China until June 2021.
Speaker 2:So, right through Covid and as I came back to England in June 21, things in England were starting to reopen and they were coming out of lockdown and things were starting to get back to normal. So that was a real opportunity for me. I didn't stay in China because they were mandating the Covid vaccine and I didn't want to have it. I knew it hadn't had long enough to have been tested and I didn't want to put chemicals in my body that I wasn't, that I didn't have faith in and I didn't have faith in it.
Speaker 2:It was a kind of an intuitive thing at the time, but it's a bit deeper than that now and I came back to England and so it was an opportunity again to reinvent myself again because I'd come back to England, and so it was an opportunity again to reinvent myself again, because I'd come back to England with no job, no plans, and so that was sort of then when I started to really work on.
Speaker 2:I'd started to train to become a QHHT practitioner whilst I was in China, and I was able to finish that training and one thing led to another, and the deeper you delve, the more things present themselves, and so your vitality coaching was launched in September 2021 and it's continued to evolve as time has gone on. So, yeah, it really did set me on a new path, and for me, I guess, it was a bit different because I was out there on my own, living on my own. I didn't have anyone out there to be thinking about. In terms of family, I had a lot of close friends and we supported each other through lockdown and what was going on, but it was a little bit different to if I would have been at home and had family close by, and so, yeah, it did shape the way forward. It was a challenging time for everybody, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it stopped life as we knew it for sure. It did. Now let's talk more about your healing journey, especially your shifts that you did, I mean, with yoga, and also you seem to steer towards natural remedies, as you said earlier. You know you didn't want to take the traditional routes and the medicines and things like that. What role did they play with breath, work, mindfulness, gratitude and connecting with nature, and how did all that play out in your personal recovery?
Speaker 2:so these things have become my toolkit for coping with life. Um, and they all work, but different, different tools at different times. I've found um.
Speaker 2:So when the pace of modern life becomes overwhelming which it frequently does, you know we've all got responsibilities, commitments, um, and and they're often very demanding time scales are short, um, it can become really overwhelming for a lot of us and, um, things always happen at once. So these are the tools that I use to sort of help me ground myself and clear and focus my mind and then be able to continue with coping with life. The breath work I find really helps me to come back to the moment you can be really focused on oh my God, I've got this to do, I've got that to do. This needs doing first, because sometimes we can't cut to that. So that helps me when I'm feeling stressed or overwhelmed. Every day I practice gratitude because there's always something to be grateful for. It doesn't matter what's going on in life, there's always something to be grateful for absolutely and it's powerful, isn't it practicing gratitude?
Speaker 2:it really is powerful it really is. Yeah, it shifts your mindset completely yeah, and it's such a small thing it really is two minutes of your time to just go hang on a minute.
Speaker 2:What am I grateful for today? And and it can, just like that, flick your mind back into the positive. I use essential oils now as a daily, daily part of my life, for different things. I don't. I use lemon oil sometimes when I'm cleaning the house. If I burn myself, I'm a bit clumsy, so I'm often burning myself on either the iron or the oven, and peppermint oil is great for that on lavender.
Speaker 1:You know, oh, talk about lavender. We use it in the bath often and I have kids three kids with autism, and they can be absolutely crazy and I'm like, well, it's time to get a bath and honestly, it really does help. I mean, as soon as I smell it, I feel that calm. So I mean, that's, it really works, it does doesn't it?
Speaker 2:It's so powerful? And again, it's nature it does, doesn't it? It's so powerful? And again, it's nature. We were given these things by the universe to use everything that we need We've got. We don't need all these pharmaceutical drugs and potions and lotions. Yeah, okay, they help sometimes, but do we really want to commit ourselves to 20 years on certain medication when actually, if we bother to take the time and understand it, we've got herbs, plants, oils that can serve us better and yeah, lavender is an amazing relaxation um tool and so many others. My essential oil collection has gone from about six oils to about 56 now. It's been an expensive few years, wow, okay, I do use them in my work as well, with my Reiki clients and um, and they are really powerful. Frankincense is amazing. It's called the power oil because it magnifies the power of whatever oil you you blend it with just so many. So I use oils for different things all the time and they're sort of my medicine cabinet now, if you like, along with some herbs and spices that are so powerful.
Speaker 1:I love using thinking outside of the box and not just going to a prescription medication, you know, instead of being able to do some of these other things to help calm I mean, nature is one of my biggest healers when you talk about nature, and I spent a lot of time in the woods as a kid and in a tree, but you know, I loved climbing the trees and still today, when I go into the woods or even to a beach and I just soak up the wind and the waves, I really feel an instant calm and some of these things that you're doing, you know how does it help deepen our own self-awareness and create real change in our confidence, motivation and help us feel that emotional balance that we're all looking for.
Speaker 2:I think it gives a point of focus. Sometimes, and if we can, sometimes all we need is a single point of focus and that can put us into a calm state. If we can get ourselves into a deep state of relaxation, that's when the body can heal itself. And there's there's lots of different ways of doing that, um, but they all require making the time to do it. And when life's busy, that's always the first thing that goes, and I'm guilty of that. When I'm, when my life is busy, my yoga practice on an evening probably won't happen, and I don't meditate as often, and they are the they're the times when I need to be doing that more than ever.
Speaker 2:Um and like I was listening to you saying about the sounds of the sea and I um, over the last sort of year, 18 months, I've discovered sound therapy and one of my favorite instruments that I've got is my ocean drum and it just sounds. When you're playing it just sounds like the ocean and I always start my sound therapy sessions with the ocean drum because it does bring you back down back into your body, back to nature, and it's got that calming, grounding effect my son, my one son who's autistic.
Speaker 1:He's eight and he started to play pan the pan drum and you know he it has that same really calming sound and it really does that for him and I'm so proud of him for wanting to go and grab it and play it, because it's actually a tool that he uses yeah, and then it's giving him that point.
Speaker 2:He's focusing on playing, he's focusing on the sound and the music yeah, and it's clearing his mind of whatever was causing anxiety, overwhelm what, whatever he was feeling. Yeah, it's amazing, and all of my sound instruments are set to the frequency of 432 hertz, which is the healing frequency.
Speaker 1:You know, I've heard that, I've heard megahertz really make a difference and I didn't even know about this. But recently somebody had said that to me. So I started looking up different frequencies and I'm like, oh my gosh, I mean, this is like a real thing yeah, absolutely 70% of our body is water.
Speaker 2:Sound travels through water faster than it travels through air. So when you're, when you're listening to sound, or when sound is around your body and it's vibrating through your body and it resonates with different parts of the body at different frequencies. So, and those different frequencies do different things for our bodies because, if you think about it, our cells are largely made up of water through plasma, and so if, if our cells are at dis-ease, if they're not well, then they're not vibrating at the frequency they should, so the sound frequencies can help bring them back to the correct frequency. It's amazing.
Speaker 1:That is just so interesting to me. We have so many things that are available for us, that are just right there in front of us, and we don't even really realize. It's just so beautiful. You know, I've reinvented myself many, many times and I really believe in constantly evolving. You are the poster person for reinventing yourself. I think, um, and I think we have to give ourselves permission many times in order to do that. What have you learned about transformation and what gives you the courage to keep evolving into new, into new versions of yourself?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have transformed many times, not intentionally, but I think it's part of life's journey and I think George Adair's quote famous quote is everything that you want is on the other side of fear, and my boss translated that to and he uses it in his fitness classes sometimes to motivate people and he'll say um, the magic happens on the other side of the stuff that you don't want to do. Well, actually, both of both of those are absolutely spot on, because the stuff that we find difficult, the stuff we're scared of, the stuff that we don't want to do, we have to overcome that in order to move, in order to transform and develop.
Speaker 2:And when I think back, like moving from England to China, I remember I packed my house up, I gave most of my belongings away, or I sold them and I headed off to China with two suitcases and no real plan. I knew that I wanted to live there, I knew I wanted to work and I headed off to China with two suitcases and no real plan. I knew that I wanted to live there, I knew I wanted to work and I knew I wanted to travel. That was my plan. I had no idea how long I was going for um, if I would have known that Covid was going to break out, I think I'd have gone five years sooner. But anyway, what was that scary? Yes, but I didn't focus on the fear. I focused on what I really wanted to achieve, and if I would have been frozen in the fear, I would have never done it. So we have to put that fear out of the way, accept it, acknowledge it. But we still have to keep going, don't we? We? Otherwise we remain stuck, and that is a choice.
Speaker 1:That's something else it is a choice it's a choice.
Speaker 2:None of us are rooted to the spot. We've all got choice. That choice might not be nice and it might not be a welcome choice, and yeah, and so evolving and I don't think a lot of us realize or feel see that choice.
Speaker 1:We don't. You know, a lot of people really don't see themselves being able to go through the fear, get to the other side, because success or whatever you really want is really on the other side and fear is a lie. You know most of the things that are standing in between us and whatever we want to achieve isn't really even going to happen.
