Insights that dissolved 20 years of anxiety, stress and agoraphobia

Episode 47 with transformative coach, author and entrepreneur, Nicola Bird

No time to watch the video? Below is the Soundcloud audio version. You can also get the podcast on your iPhone here or check out Spotify here.

In this episode, you’ll hear Nicola explain:⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

• the key insights that changed her relationship with anxiety and panic attacks

• unstoppable thoughts, and why you don’t have to jump on them

• dealing with “what if…?”

• why she quit trying to find solutions

• how long it took for her to find peace 

• relinquishing the need to control

• how her new insights wiped 90% of tasks off her to-do list

• the new feel-good project that grew from her garden

• plus, who is Sydney Banks and what are the Three Principles?

‘All of a sudden, something that was so scary just looked really obvious to go and do’

There’s an approach to dealing with anxiety that you might not have heard about before. I hadn’t. And then I discovered Nicola Bird.

For more than 20 years, Nicola lived with periods of anxiety and panic attacks that at times were so all-consuming that she didn’t leave the house for weeks. Not even to take out the trash. 

She was struggling with claustrophobia and agoraphobia, she told me, and “had all sorts of therapies and treatments” to try and help.

If you had met her at the time, though, you wouldn’t have guessed she was suffering. “It looked like all my ambition and go-getting was creating a very successful lifestyle,” she told me.

And it was. She was a high-achieving entrepreneur, wife and mother.

But in 2013, at the age of 42, she reached a crunch moment.

“That's when I finally burnt out…three months of just not being able to work, go out, nothing - I couldn't do anything,” she told me.

Her business hit a whopping seven figures in revenue - yet Nicola described feeling emotionless when she heard the great news. 

“I saw the number. I'd worked so hard for it, and there was nothing there,” she explained.

“That’s what woke me up,” she said.

Nicola started having sessions with a business mentor who introduced her to a different way of looking at her experiences.

It sparked a string of insights within Nicola that seemed to snowball into a life-changing effect.

“Even though we didn't talk about my anxiety, ten weeks after I started working with him - it was gone,” she told me.

“I found myself booking tickets to take my daughter to Disneyland Paris, which was a complete impossibility for me before. I just didn't like going far from my house at all. And all of a sudden, something that was so scary just looked really obvious to go and do. 

“He couldn't really work out what he'd done. And I was so curious about that.“

Nicola said she spent the next three years traveling around the world learning from leaders in the field of this different understanding.

Last year, she released a book about her insights: ‘A Little Peace of Mind: The Revolutionary Solution for Freedom from Anxiety, Panic Attacks and Stress,’ and runs a number of online programs coaching others about what she’s learnt.

I first came across Nicola when one of her videos popped up in my Facebook feed. The way she described her former anxious thinking was so relatable (anxiety and me go back a long way!) and when I heard her compare the nature of thought to the ticker tape on a news channel - it resonated with me even more (I’m a former TV news journalist and presenter). I decided to sign up to one of her courses and completed it earlier this year.⠀⠀⠀

Not long after that, I invited her on to healthHackers so that you guys could hear her story too. And here we are - episode 47 with transformative coach, author & entrepreneur, Nicola Bird.

I initially had the urge to try and spell out Nicola’s insights within this article. But I realized that giving you my interpretation of an understanding that she’s spent years exploring would only limit your potential to be touched in any number of ways by positive insights that could be triggered from watching this interview.

Nicola told me: “I had one simple insight and something woke up in me.” 

Maybe it will in you too.

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Read more about Nicola and her ‘A Little Peace Of Mind’ programs.

And find out about her latest venture, ‘The Floral Project’ (also mentioned in episode 47).

Want to see more videos featuring changemakers in health and mindset? Hit the subscribe button on the healthHackers YouTube channel (it’s free!).👇

Common sense caution: Anything you hear or see within healthHackers content should not be considered personal or medical advice. You’ve heard it before, so you know the score - always talk to your own health provider about your concerns.