Wild + (finally fcking) Free episode 15: Rock Bottom and Rising with Resilience with Nic Liddell
I have known the delicious Nic Liddell for years, ever since we trained together (way back in the day I even did a mini-triathlon and she did a few REAL ones!), and reconnecting on this pod and continuing our conversation long after we stopped recording has been a really deep joy for me. In this ep we get the realest and rawest ever with:
- What Nic thought was her big life metamorphosis when she took up training and lost a chunk of weight in her 30s and her subsequent realisations about weight as a protective mechanism and how she found her nerve endings feeling too raw and vulnerable once the protection was shed
- How receiving the judgement from close friends and family members around her putting her needs first and not living up to their definition of a "good mother" became something she had to learn to live with to live her best life
- Nic's key partnership after her marriage broke down elicited a pattern of "turning herself inside out to try to fix or heal" her partner and how this relationship ultimately caused her to draw a line in the sand and declare "I am not going to be anything but myself just to try to be loved and accepted
- How dissolving this pattern caused Nic to lose her internal compass, how she felt lost and experienced social anxiety, and experienced her version of rock bottom
- The pivotal moment when Nic was told by her doctor she was on the verge of a mental breakdown, and how she decided on a whim to enrol in a Bachelor of Psychology despite having 39 cents in her bank account - a decision she puts down to making a clear decision that if she was going to be in so much pain, there H A D to be a light at the end of the tunnel and something good would come from it
- How 6 years later, Nic has recently graduated with a First Class Honours degree, despite being conditioned as a kid to believe that girls didn't go to University, and that she just needed to find a man and settle down and have kids.
- Nic's own journey healing patterns of co-dependency and deep self-doubt born out of growing up in a household with a parent suffering significant mental health distress, and a juicy discussion about Nic's theory around "empathy" being a protective response from a fried nervous system stuck in time by trauma
- A deep dive into the gift (and discomfort for a recovering co-dependent) of setting boundaries and a farm house analogy for keeping your heart and mind safe
Following 6 years of study and single mamahood, Nic is now settling in to working full time and taking care of herself, and enjoying the result of years of rapid evolution and shedding skin. Thank you so, so much Nic for sharing your story (and given we didn't even scratch the surface on the maiden-mother-crone and discard by the patriarchy stories we were going to dive into, look forward to having you back for episode 2.
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