Are you really ready for change?

It might seem like an ‘of course I am’ question, but as a psychotherapist in Dundee, with clients from Edinburgh, Glasgow, London – throughout the UK – I have to be sure each person is genuinely committed to the changes they say they want.

I met a lovely guy last month. He had suffered from depression a few times in his life. I didn’t know this as I begun to talk about the speed and effectiveness of the Human Givens approach. He said ‘but what you’re talking about wouldn’t have worked for someone like me; my depression couldn’t have been resolved quickly. It took a long time to get to depression so it took a long time to turn round’. Thankfully, this guy is upbeat, positive and impressively confident today. It did get me wondering though about how much a psychotherapist can deliver if their client holds a set of limiting beliefs like that.


Most clients are I’m glad to say committed to quick change; they don’t want another day of depression, panic attacks or trauma symptoms and they’ll re-think, re-prioritise and re-learn – whatever it takes to re-access a life of choices and freedom quickly.

Some say they are but are genuinely not ready for making adjustments. So why would they want to continue with their anxiety, their addiction or their self-harming? Well the answer to that is complex but at the foundation there has to be a perceived benefit (often subconscious) to remaining in their state of difficulty. Perhaps a person gets their attention needs met by not being able to leave their house so instead having family or carers come in and see them every day in the meantime. Perhaps a person likes the control they can exert by keeping to only 500 calories a day when their body wants 1500. Or perhaps a person remains in an abusive relationship because the story they’re playing out is about ‘having someone is better than having no-one’.

Whatever the reason, there will come a point when enough is enough and that’s often when a person will jump onto Google, search ‘therapy in Dundee … or Edinburgh or wherever’, find me (Jennifer Broadley) at Healthy Chat and pick up the phone for a first conversation. Can i just say right now that those people who make it as far as picking up the phone and speaking to me (or one of my Healthy Chat practitioners) are genuinely courageous and change-desiring individuals. For them I have confidence that the structure of how Human Givens psychotherapy is built will serve them quickly and effectively and they’re going to be implementing change and reaping the rewards from as quickly as the first session.


The challenge comes when a parent or a partner has done the persuading and a client is seeing me to pacify that person in their life. They’re showing up in body, by their mind and emotional engagement is totally elsewhere. They haven’t reached the stage yet where the discomfort they’re experiencing on a day-to-day basis is greater than the fear of doing something about it. And unfortunately this mindset is a stretch for any therapist to turn round.

Emotional and mental health have extraordinary subtleties relating to each individual who thinks and progresses through life. To get people back to operating independently, hopefully and creatively is a skill set. To support people to function healthily in relationship with themselves before they attempt to do so with others takes wisdom, know-how and patience. But overall, if a client has been down far enough that the only way now is up, then Healthy Chat, me, Human Givens psychotherapy and all the skills and experience of my therapists WILL make a difference. It’s about power in partnership – because we’re all a part of each other’s solution.

Jennifer Broadley is the founder of www.HealthyChat.co.uk. She is a full time executive coach, life coach and psychotherapist working with business leaders, entrepreneurs and motivated individuals around myth-busting and abundant living. She was brought up in West Africa, educated in Scotland and lived and worked in Hong Kong, Australia and Indonesia before returning to a London base in 1997.
She and her daughter now live on the UK's east coast, where she continues to coach and write. Jennifer is a published author with her first book 'The 7 Steps to Personal & Professional Freedom'®, available on www.Amazon.co.uk. You can call, email or message Jennifer from www.JenniferBroadley.com.

Stress relief

Stress and its side effects are on the increase. The worst-case knock on effect of acute or ongoing stress can be depression, illness and a sense of being out-of-control of your life. So what are the stressors you need to look out for? How do you spot them? Then manage them in order to stay calm? 

I was at a weekend conference recently and one of the topics was an exploration of how our world and cultures have evolved. Turns out that while you have more choice than every before in history – where you live, what you eat, which relationships you commit to and how your career progresses – you’re actually not always fully equipped to manage the range of choices too far beyond what you’ve been taught are ‘normal’ and ‘right’.

So if your parents did a church, white wedding, you’re more likely to want the same regardless of whether you’ve been active in developing your faith up to the point of choosing marriage. Equally if your peers all commit to university as the right next step after high school, you may well be swayed that way even though the best choice for you could be to go straight into work, do an apprenticeship or start up on your own from day one.

Each of these compromises, the choices that take you away from where your intuition is guiding you, increases the stressors in your life and impacts your health and sense of wellbeing. So how do you navigate your own path? How do you get to a place where life has success and meaning for you for now and for whenever you view your future?

The key is calmness. Keeping an emotional equilibrium allows your brain to filter in the best choices for you at any given time. Investing time in knowing what you want from life will also fast track your decision making and your ability to achieve. So get some clarity around who you most like to spend time with, what your career goals are, where you want to travel, how fit you want to be, how you want to contribute to your community and what activities make you most happy in any given moment.

Developing calmness – which leads to awareness – can be done in any number of ways. You can do it through breathing, mindfulness, running, swimming, mediation, prayer, reading, writing, talking, quiet contemplation, exploring, painting … the list is endless. You can work out what’s most effective for the person you are and the lifestyle you lead. Then as you practice integrating conscious calmness into your life you’ll notice that your thoughts remain clearer, your decision making becomes more targeted, your compromising reduces and your sense of self-worth and achievement are daily celebrations.

Relief from stress is a positive choice. It’s a necessary part of achieving in today’s increasingly complex world. And it’s your route to opportunity and meaning in a way that only you would resonate with. Your life, your life choices, your calm happiness.

This entry was posted in Awareness, blended family, emotional intelligence, executive life coach, Meaning, spiritual awareness, Stress relief, successful life, Uncategorized and tagged awareness, change your life, consciousness, emotional intelligence, healthy chat, panic attacks, spiritual awareness, stress relief, successful living. Bookmark the permalink.

About Author:

Jennifer Broadley is one of the UK's leading executive coaches. She works with corporate leaders, business directors and successful entrepreneurs. She specialises in CEO coaching, prosperity coaching and providing the most cutting-edge and intuitive leadership and personal success programs in the UK. Jennifer is passionate about the ongoing self improvement of the world's future business leaders – the way-showers for our precious next generation. She coaches, speaks, writes and runs workshops on 'The 7 Steps to Personal & Professional Freedom'®. You can buy her book of the same name from www.Amazon.co.uk You can call, email or message Jennifer from www.healthychat.co.uk

Change your thoughts – change your life

As Healthy Chat evolves and begins to morph and manifest into the vision I’ve been holding for nearly 5 years, the process has encouraged me to look at how I’ve been resourced personally to get to this point.

Since 2009 my pace of life has changed as has my family shape, my home, and my friendships. I’ve moved from a garden-flat in the energy-packed city of London to a house in a quite village on Scotland’s east coast; from independent living with my daughter, to collaborative living as an extended family. And that’s not all; my sports have changed – from squash and running to tennis and swimming – as has my fitness, diet, finances, confidence, spiritual practices, education and volunteering time.

If you’d told me even 3 years ago that my life would have sustained such all-encompassing changes I’d have said ‘no way’. And so I’m here now asking myself how it’s possible that I’m not a quivering bundle sobbing in the corner? What has sustained me, what has kept me trusting and taking just a single further step forward? The answer is multi-faceted but at the core it involves resourceful thinking, an ability to reframe any situation as positive and faith in my vision.

For years I’ve wanted uplifting, life-changing, hope-filled conversations to be as normalised and as accessible as a good gym. This culture of ‘oh he’s seeing a therapist, he must be in crisis’, or ‘she’s working with a coach, there must be a problem’ is so 1900s. In 2013, coaching and theraputic conversations are underpinned by science, research and extraordinary professionalism – they’re going to make an impact.

This new ‘personally–unlimited’ era embraces a Healthy Chat as one of many success tools – specialized, empowering, breakthrough conversations.

Living life successfully is more complex in this millennium than ever before in history. We live in a world of increased choice and where we used to filter hundreds of choices we now filter millions.

From childhood, through teens to independent living our experiences influence how we look at our world. Then on through relationships, children (or not), work choices, travel, time investments in health, fitness and fun, finances, free-time, sport, food, technology, home life, self expression, peer groups, new interests, what to let go of, what to commit to phew endless choices. And understandably it can all be a bit overwhelming.

Where we used to be taught by our communities that there was a ‘right way’ to live life; the evolving world culture is one of multi-levelled acceptance of difference and an embracing of diversity. Developing a new skill set of personal clarity, respect and non-judgement is key.It makes for a more colourful world canvas that way too.

New thinking means that some of the old ways have to be let go of – you get to choose which received ‘wisdom’ has value and which is baggage. Keep one, dump the other. Change your thoughts and you change your life

About author:
Jennifer Broadley is one of the UK's leading executive coaches. She works with corporate leaders, business directors and successful entrepreneurs. She specialises in CEO coaching, prosperity coaching and providing the most cutting-edge and intuitive leadership and personal success programs in the UK. Jennifer is passionate about the ongoing self improvement of the world's future business leaders – the way-showers for our precious next generation. She coaches, speaks, writes and runs workshops on 'The 7 Steps to Personal & Professional Freedom. You can buy her book of the same name from www.Amazon.co.uk You can call, email or message Jennifer from www.healthychat.co.uk