Clare Muscutt talks with Amélie Beerens about overcoming childhood trauma to become the women we’re destined to be.
Episode #414 Show Notes:
Clare:
Welcome to the 14th episode of the fourth series of the Women in CX podcast, a series dedicated to real-talk conversations between women in customer experience. Listen in as we share our career stories, relive the moments that shaped us and voice our opinions as loudly as we like about all manner of CX subjects, I'll be your host, Clare Muscutt, and in today's episode, I'll be talking to a seriously awesome founding member of our community from Brussels in Belgium. She's a CX consultant and career coach obsessed with putting humans at the heart of everything. With 12 years of experience in CX leadership roles and through the creation of her progressive content, and practical resources, she helps ambitious CX professionals take action, develop confidence and deliver with radical human centricity. She's the host of the People and Digital podcast and the WiCX Solopreneurs Group Lead. Let me introduce you to today's inspiring guests. Please welcome to the show CX sister, Amélie Beerens.
Clare:
Hi, Amélie
Amélie:
Hi Clare.
Clare:
Welcome to the Women in CX podcast.
Amélie:
Thank you. I'm very, very happy to be here.
Clare:
And welcome to everybody that's listening along as well. So I just thought I'd start this episode with just a little look back on how I met Amélie Beerens. I've been in CX for ages and probably I felt like the only CX-er on Instagram that was being myself. And then one day I came across this girl wearing a, what are they called? Visor.
Amélie:
Visor.
Clare:
With pink branding, blowing a bubble gum bubble, holding a Bill Bryson book with a jumper with cats on and unicorns. And I was like, I have to get to know this girl <laugh> and I don't know if you remember, but I think I reached out, then I found you on LinkedIn and I reached out to you and I think I said we need to be friends <laugh>
Amélie:
Yeah, yeah. I remember. Well, I was very excited because I've been following you for a while and I had the chance to hear you already and your thoughts. And I knew we were sharing already a lot of ideas, so I was excited.
Clare:
<Laugh> We were destined to be together and then Amélie joined us as one of our founding members originally, back in the day. So helped us to co-design the WiCX platform and was an integral part of us getting to where we are today and just one of the big highlights. So, apologies to anyone who's listening and not watching. But Amélie got me a present when I saw what she had on Instagram. And we are now both the proud owners of the best laptop cases in the world, a cat riding a unicorn, <laugh>
Amélie:
A fire-breathing unicorn.
Clare:
Fire breathing unicorn in front of a rainbow. Now I think nothing sums up the energy of our friendship and our relationship more than this <laugh> rainbow, cat, unicorn. And since then, anytime I text you or I comment on your stuff on LinkedIn, there's always a rainbow, a cat and a unicorn <laugh>
Amélie:
Yeah, that's our code. That's our energy. Yeah.
Clare:
And obviously, now you've gone on to lead our Solopreneurs group within the community. How has that been?
Amélie:
Oh, super, super adventure. I mean in the community, we started to bond because we saw each other in our own solopreneur adventures. And when that little corner on that community opened it was very exciting because we have weekly meetings. We have all the space to share our woos and boos and help each other. This little corner in this already wonderful community has been a breath of fresh air. I needed it and I know I'm not the only one with this because the alchemy on the group is just growing as we go, as we grow as well as a solo entrepreneur, you know, I'm really happy to show up there and bring some help anytime I can, but I also receive so much from that <laugh> so I'm grateful I'm there.
Clare:
That's the joy of community, isn't it? You get so much more back out of what you put in every time without fail and yeah, the woos of the boos that was like started right back at the start didn't it or woo of the week and something good that had happened and being able to go somewhere and share our boos, the things that were like really, really troubling as and making us cry. And yeah, I'm just super excited for what we're going to do with that group in the next 12 months thanks to your leadership <laugh>
Amélie:
Yeah, the sky is not even the limit for that.
Clare:
<Laugh> yeah. Even we're going past the moon, we said the other day didn't we <laugh> yeah. Riding our fire breathing unicorns into success. So I'm sure that audience would love to know, obviously have kind of like brought you up to date with the stuff that that's going on in the community and our beautiful story of rainbow, cats and unicorns. But how exactly did you find your way into CX and where you are today?
Amélie:
Uhhuh <laugh> so it's been 12 years that I am in the digital industry. I studied as a project manager, evolve as a product owner and at what point on my journey because I'm learning all the time. I'm quite obsessed about learning and discovering new things. I encountered the concept of customer experience and I was like, oh my God, that's what I'm doing. There is a name for it. <Laugh> There is people doing it as well, because I have to admit, I was feeling a little bit lonely sometimes in my mm-hmm <affirmative> way of thinking and the way of bringing the customer-centricity into my project, into my way of working. And so yeah, that was a relief. And so as of that moment, I was already a consultant.
Amélie:
And then at that moment, I say, okay, that will be how I call myself now because I found my tribe. <Laugh> I'm a CX consultant. Yes. And so then that all consulting life really got me very happy until I started to have some struggle because the implementation because I have been somebody who implement solution for years due to my product ownership background, I started to get frustrated because I got really human problems <laugh> on the infamous digital transformation and got them into coaching to help myself first. And it was incredibly helpful. And so I jumped into the training coaching and I said, okay, that's what is missing to my practice. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. And since then, it's been now since 2017, I am bringing everything coaching can bring to human beings into my practice. I'm now calling myself a CX Design and Career Coach. And I think now my love for CX cannot have any end because those two are working so well together that my God we're in for a ride with those two <laugh>.
Clare:
So, that means you're coaching clients around CX design and then individuals around implementation?
Amélie:
Yeah, it started actually like this, I was starting to coach people on the project as a consultant and because people are facing challenges all the time when they want to implement CX in a company because there is resistance the change as we are not wired to accept change and to just jump in people don't like change even mm-hmm <affirmative> for the sake of change or the curiosity, it's not an easy process. And CX is transforming companies so deeply that it was creating a lot of frustration, tiredness and exhaustion sometimes. So I started to coach people. Yeah, burnout, definitely. So I started to coach people so they can be able to understand what's in it for them as well, how to face a difficult situation and bring that human part of CX into the collaboration because it's nice to focus on the customer, the <inaudible> and all the vague statement you can find out there.
Amélie:
Nice, that's a good start, but this is a human adventure as well inside the company. And then everybody can relate to that say, okay, yeah, if you have colleagues, which is most likely, you know, it's not easy to build stuff together. So imagine to build stuff that does not exist yet. And that needs, you know, innovation together is even, so I started this way. And then I started to take coaching out of the company because the challenges were a little bit the same, but for solopreneur, for people also wanted to create something different with their life. And then, you know, yeah, it's growing this way.
Clare:
Mm wow. That's so cool. Like transition from digital into CX, transition from coaching internally to coaching people externally. I just love the way that you're following your energy and what you love about this and creating your own space and niche in doing something less common. And we were always talking about breaking down the bullsh*t aren't we, breaking down the silos of, even just the stuff that is out there telling people, customer experience is a panacea, customer experience is a silver bullet. We can do like all of these things if you just buy this product or buy this solution. And even yesterday we were in a room weren't we with a couple of members having a mastermind session. And we were like, wow, <laugh> being able to see so consistently that everybody is like drinking the Kool-Aid around this.
Clare:
And actually, it's detrimental to not only the business results, but everybody's health because so many women arrive at the community completely exhausted and burnt out and feeling like they're banging their heads against the brick wall. Most of the time, trying to conjure up these big strategic top-down initiatives that never seem to work. And now we're all together talking about these things and these factors <laugh>, everyone's going, oh, okay. It's not just me. Oh, maybe there's some different truth we need to go and discover for ourselves. And I think, you know, coaching and personal development alongside that is such a critical part of the journey and just awesome that you're bringing that to women and other people in customer experience. So <laugh> Sorry. Little, quick Muscutt rant there. Anyway. <Laugh> So yeah, I'm not entirely sure how to begin this next section of our conversation because obviously you and I have got to know one another particularly well over, over the last few months, and when we were talking about this podcast we revealed to one another, that we've been through a very similar experience.
Clare:
And what we really wanted to focus on was, not really so much what we experienced that's affected us now, but how we are learning to live with that and, and actually change our own perceptions of ourselves as a result of childhood trauma. So the question I asked you initially was what was something that you had to get over to become the woman that you are today, one big challenge or obstacle, and, you know, this is kind of where we, we discovered we both shared a very similar challenge and obstacle. So would you like to tell your audience, your story from your perspective?
Amélie:
Yeah. Thank you for opening that space. I think it's very brave and very very helpful. So I'm very, very grateful for that space. So, my story, yes, I discovered age of 30 that actually I was suffering from burnout. And so, I started therapy, you know, and that therapy led me to understand that I was not only suffering from burnout. I was a traumatized person. I had severe PTSD, meaning I was walking life with a broken foot, but actually, I didn't know it was broken. It's really that, except it's not something you can see, like a broken foot mm-hmm <affirmative> I was not limping, or at least I was limping in another way. I was limping in my head and in my behaviour, in my emotion, everything was kind of broken.
Amélie:
My codes were broken, what, which led me to that burnout. And so going through this journey of healing of that PTSD, which was, what the hell is this? I've never heard about that before. And I was deep down in a hole, you know, I was really deep down in a hole. Thanks to a wonderful therapist, I discovered through the healing process that I was actually suffering from a traumatic memory, which is the first consequence. One of the first consequences you can have when you have child abuse. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and so yeah, imagine my world just, you know, exploded inside of myself because I had to revisit that part to survive it actually because what happened is I was so helpless and so fragile, and I was just a kid, that my brain decided to protect me because I was not there yet ready to heal from there.
Amélie:
I was not able to apprehend anything that was happening to me. It was not possible. So that marvellous brain of mine, my body as well, decided to protect me in somehow, in their ways. And at the age of 30, obviously, they were ready to get out of this Pandora’s box they were closed into for so long. And we started the journey together. So, yeah, I'm 38 now. So it's been eight years since this Pandora’s box opened in the most violent way you can imagine. And today that's why I also loved the angle. You said to me, we're going to talk about hope and resilience. And I was like, that's all my life is, what it's about, it's just because today I am that resilient person. I am somebody who's deeply happy of all the choices I've made and where I know that I've been through hell mm-hmm <affirmative>. I know that it transformed me and the healing I brought with me the whole time was not only helpful for me, it was helpful for the people around me. And the more I talk about it and the more it's a reality, the more it's a sharing process, that's how the conversation started with the two of us as well. And this is so helpful. So in a nutshell, but voila, my story.
Clare:
<Laugh> yeah. Oh God, it's hard. Isn't it? Yeah. So just reflecting on a few things you talked about then, because I did say I was going be brave and share my story too because I believe like there must be so many other women, people out there who are struggling with coming to terms with their past. And for me, it happened at 40, not 30. The realisation that actually perhaps what I'd been telling myself, the narrative about who I was for my whole life might not be true. And this came to pass through not a conversation with a therapist, although I'd had conversations, I'd had therapy for two years every week during the pandemic, it was a conversation with a mentor that helped me to realise that I fundamentally didn't believe I deserved to be happy, loved, or successful. And after that conversation, it left me questioning.
Clare:
Why, why would I feel that way? Because the evidence that counts as all of that is the woman that I am today, that this friend mentor, you know, reeled off all of these reasons why I should not feel that way about myself. It was like somebody turned the lights on in a dark room, or maybe I'd been unable to see properly because I needed glasses and I put them on for the first time. And it was like, I had this moment of absolute clarity while simultaneously seeing the scope of what was possible for me in my future widen in a moment. And kind of thinking and reflecting around what I can see now that I couldn't before was the fact that similarly to you, as a child, I'd been unable to understand what was happening and interpreted it in a way that meant I was bad and that I'd done something wrong.
Clare:
And I carried that with me my whole life. So I think my healing journey around this is just about to begin and it's going to begin by going back to therapy. I'm actually going on this amazing travel adventure over the summer. So I've decided I'm going to wait until September when I get back. But I know that I'm going to have to do the things that you so bravely did of reprocessing memories and traumatic experiences. Cause I've always kept my Pandora's box of experiences very tightly closed and never felt quite ready to look at it. But with this experience of putting the glasses on and thinking, well maybe all that stuff I've told myself about who I am and my unworthiness is not true. The feeling that it gave me to think that I could be something else and something more because of a belief system I constructed based on my brain like you were trying to protect itself has given me so much hope for the future and I'm willing to do the work, I'm ready.
Clare:
I'm going to go right in there. <Laugh> and I know, I don't believe for a second believe it's going to be easy. But just even knowing that fact that it, that voice in that voice that always holds me back and warns me not to have, I don't know, have relationships or to really think that I could build my start-up into a $10 million business. That's just all gone. <Laugh> it's still there, but I'm not listening to it anymore. It's like, there's this whole other part of me that I've ignored and suppressed. The good part of me, the bright light, the person that was always supposed to shine, the woman I was always supposed to be, the woman that I am today is coming together to do that. So, really focusing on this notion of hope and resilience and what we can take from these awful situations, what should we be? I have to take a pause for a second because I think I've forgotten what I was going to ask you as a question because I just <laugh>. I
Amélie:
It's so beautiful. What you just said. It's beautiful. I mean, I'm very happy you are sharing this. It's beautiful.
Clare:
Bloody hard though. <Laugh> to say it out loud. Yeah, just yeah, because I guess for me the patterns that began there continued throughout my life, especially with relationships with men. So, being 15 and entering a really abusive relationship for five years when I think I was still a child to all extents and purposes. You know that point when your brain is still neuroplastic isn't it. It's still trying to make connections, anything that happens to you as a young child, even right up to our late teenage years can have a huge effect on your brain wiring. So, how can we rewire our brains, Amélie? I think <laugh> is
Clare:
A good question.
Amélie:
Yeah. Yeah. The brain is an interesting creature. Its first purpose in life is to protect us. And he does that by keeping us in a familiar zone where he knows there is limiting risk for us and what is not risky for him is just familiar. So it can be tricky just by them because for the whole, all the thing that, that, you know, for him are familiar, whatever is happening inside that familiarity. And that's why we experience, we experience so many bad relationships. So, so many bad circumstances because it's all we knew. It's all we could receive, disrespect violence and many other stuff. And that's the drama, the real drama about that because you, you tend to believe when you got such experiences that you tend to believe that you deserve that, you live in shame, you live in guilt, you have absolutely no confidence at all.
Amélie:
And so starting, not even from the ground, but you were really deep down there. I remember that what, the first thing my therapist was trying to convince me that I was a clever being <laugh> even that, even that I thought it was not true, even that, and she had to gut me through, you know, the test for IQ test just to say, do that. So yeah. To get a proof point. And even then when I got the result, I was like, yeah, you know, but statistically it's still not blah, blah, blah. And I'll find some excuses. You know, you're coming from so down that you need to rewire your brain with courage, for sure, but with compassion and curiosity, because at one point, the only thing you know, is you are feeling so bad and you just don't want to be in that situation anymore.
Amélie:
Actually, the first person that will provide a safe place and give you help, will be the good one to follow. Mm. Because at one point I also believe that at one point you feel a warmth again when you are around other people, mm-hmm, <affirmative>, you are not, your sentence for life is not to be only with the bad people, because it sounds familiar or because you are so trapped into your guilt and your shame and everything that you will never get out of it, your curiosity and your compassion with itself is something that will grow on you. And it starts with <affirmative> freeing the stories like what we are doing right now. And it starts with making it normal to talk out. And so people are like, Ooh, come on.
Amélie:
It's just, that it's familiar in a way. I mean, I feel like I can relate or it, it also happened to me and the fact it's true part of my journey and the rewiring of my brain of starting to believe that I was worse. Something that the stuff happening to me was not only by chance, but because I was putting all the effort in, it was also by connecting with the right person, by being curious, when I heard something that was resonating with me when I was compassionate with me. And it's not a linear process of course, because compassion towards me took me, my God, I was the worst b*tch towards myself and I can still be <laugh>. So, so yeah.
Clare:
Yeah. There's so much to reflect on. I really felt in the words that you were just saying just that experience of always continuing to gravitate towards pretty much the same situations with, for me with guys, and continuously being hurt and just always reinforcing that lie. You know the one that I have figured out now is a lie that I told myself about my unworthiness. But also this self-compassion thing. I had none for myself, ever. I don't think. And I remember being in a therapy session, you know, like you said, you remember this distinct moment of saying something like that. Like, I couldn't say I love and accept myself. I would just burst into tears and be a quivering wreck. It was crazy looking back. I just couldn't say the words, even now. It makes me want to tear up <laugh> mm-hmm it was that bad. Yeah.
Amélie:
And I don't know. I think it's, it's something about recognising how much compassion I have for others. Animals, I'm full of compassion, it's in abundance. <Laugh>, I'm not a, you know, an uncompassionate person. And also I've experienced huge levels of success in other areas of my life, like relationships with friends, I've got so many amazing, deep, intimate friendships. It's not that I can't have intimate relationships or intimacy generally, or, you know, closeness with people. So I've got all of the key skills and attributes to be able to go on and live a very happy, fulfilled life. I just have to believe that I can <laugh>
Amélie:
Yeah.
Clare:
From here, which I hadn't really recognised, but I suppose the inner child in us, the inner child that couldn't compute all of this stuff, for me, mine's been piloting me around for years, and I just hadn't realised that this is the part that, you know, needs healing and reintegrating. I would just always even in therapy sessions, wouldn't be able to look at that part of myself, that inner child of me, because I was so ashamed of it or they teenage me even. But that's what healing is. Right. It's being able to accept all of them, even the darkest parts of yourself with compassion and love. And yeah, I am <laugh> under no illusion that that is difficult, but it's so inspiring to see somebody who has been through without doubt from, what you know, not that we're going to talk about the details today, far worse experiences and to see how you've turned that around, how you've become who you are today and how you help so many other people overcome this by being trauma-informed yourself. It gives me great hope that for anyone out there who's experienced any kind of trauma or abuse or yeah, well basically just that abuse from people that were supposed to love you, that there is hope for everybody, that with the right help, support, time, self-compassion and supportive experts, I guess, with things like therapists that we can make the change in our lives today that will enable us to live a full and happy life into the future. Yeah.
Amélie:
Yeah. That's, that's my deepest, <laugh>,
Amélie:
That's my deepest wish for anybody who would feel lost right now because you feel terrible about being yourself. That's actually what I felt for so long. I was trying all the suits I can imagine to, am I this person? Am I this person,? Ah, let's try this, am I this one? And I was feeling, it was, it was wrong in anything and, you know, I can relate so much. And you said that you experienced a lot of great success in your life and I can, I can relate to that a lot. And before I outed my story, let's say people were just seeing a great successful woman doing all the things and I had, you know, nothing was wrong with me apparently. I had some excessive behaviour on some stuff, but the pain and the distress were really inside.
Amélie:
So, but I hustled, I hustled my way for anything. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> I was walking on a broken foot, but I did it anyway. <Laugh> and actually that hustle was not just pain because looking back at it, but it was, it was, you know, I had I could save myself from some situation, of course, and I got the best friends that I can, and I remember for that, I have for over 30 years. So, I mean, not everything was wrong on the road. I could see sometimes the light and that is what kept me continuing that journey, but is also super important to be able to reflect on what can, what was some of the success even a tiny little bit because that's also something their brain loves evidence, evidence that we are able to do stuff.
Clare:
The IQ test evidence.
Amélie:
Yeah. Evidence that what we are being told is true. What you are telling yourself is true. What you're telling yourself is wrong, because it's not helping you to go further. And yeah, that there is always a smile or a situation. I'm not talking about a saviour because you're creating the stuff most of the time by just moving around. But yeah, still I consider the therapist who took me in charge as a big role, asking for help was the best idea I've ever had, ever. The hardest thing I ever did.
Clare:
Yeah. Well, self-work is undoubtedly the hardest work we'll ever do, isn't it? The internal work yeah. In the world. And, it's just, you know, how we started this podcast, you talked about thinking you were having burnout and actually you got diagnosed with PTSD. Do you want to tell the listeners just a little bit more about what PTSD is for any avoidance of doubt and how those signs can be misinterpreted as things like burnout?
Amélie:
Yeah. So, PTSD is a post-traumatic stress syndrome. It has been discovered first when a soldier who coming back from war had been through an awful situation that really shook their soul to the core in their body. So all the distress after the wars in the United States there was a lot of people completely, their minds were completely unwired. They were coming back completely different. And actually, they were still relieving in their mind and in their body, the traumatic event they'd been through. It means that, for example, that's an example. One man came back from war and one of the traumatic event he went through in that war, it was he had to cross a mind field and he lost some colleagues on that mind field, but he had to cross so many mind fields that his way of walking changed drastically.
Amélie:
He was always checking on the floor, checking on the floor, checking on the floor because his life was depending on it, while he was seeing other people exploding around him. And then coming back, when he is now in a safe place, he couldn't help but keep the same way of walking all the time. He was completely scared all the time. So that's a tiny anecdote, but it, it reflects how it can happen to anything. So, it means that even if you are functioning socially, you go to work, you go to, you know, you might have some weird behaviour, for example, I indulge myself in alcohol and risky behaviour for a long period of my youth but you function anyway. Yeah. But you function anyway, there is, nobody never said, I think she got a problem somewhere, or if they thought so, they never shared that with me at least.
Amélie:
And so what brought me to my burnout was all the behaviour that kept me safe. That kept me safe from my trauma, that kept me safe from an abuser, that kept me safe on that moment. That kept me alive. And so your brain again, is like, okay, that behaviour kept her safe. I'm going to do that every time danger is again there, but the danger is sometimes so familiar, so close to you. So you know, all the abuse, it's usually in a close circle. It's not the abuser popping out from nowhere and aggressing you, it's a reality and it's a dramatic reality, but most of the abusers are not these crazy guys popping out of nowhere. They are people around you. So imagine in your daily life, normal and bam, trauma happens, abuse happens.
Amélie:
And so your brain is going to just rewire himself to keep you safe and not leaving that thing. But it's completely out of good sense for the rest of your life, where abuse is not supposed to be. And so your behaviours are always defensive, always. The fight of flight, you are always overstimulated. You are always on the edge of something. And so the pain, that anxiety, all this f*cked up behaviour that you're developing, that are not accurate for the situation you are in, when you are lucky and you are not anymore in this situation are bringing you a lot of pain and a lot of distress. And that's usually where we start to pile up all the distress and anxiety and our body responds. And that's what led me to burnout, but I was actually already safe, but I was still having so much deep reaction from that trauma. So I guess I painted a picture of what it is, the post-traumatic stress syndrome, but you were taking with you your self-defence system that kept you alive, the day, or the moment you were in danger, and you produced that over and over. That's what nightmares are for, so there is so, so many ways.
Clare:
Yeah. I still have the same recurring nightmares that I did as a kid and a teenager. They're still exactly the same recurring nightmare. <Laugh>
Amélie:
Yeah.
Clare:
That feeling of waking up and feeling like for a second, you are back there, I've tried to explain that to people before, and not many people understand, but just that moment when you first wake up, the shock, and you are safe, but your body still remembers what it felt like not to be.
Amélie:
Yeah. That's exactly that. That's a very classic one. The recurring nightmares and the memories were like, there are confusing memories. It sounds real, but yet it's far away from you and that's yeah, because you've been disassociated during the abuse, the body has all of these systems to keep you safe, it's going to disconnect. And it's actually a completely normal biological system. At one point, you pour so much more stress that that's you dying. So if you keep stressing like that, your heart's going to stop. So the brain is shutting down everything, everything. And so you are completely still, you can't. Yeah. You can't do anything. You are disassociated completely. Yeah. And that's also what that has a dramatic impact on your memory and on everything that's going to happen after. Of course. So it, you know, that it is a simple act sometimes.
Amélie:
I mean, simple, in the sense of short, it can be an accident for you. You think it's an accident. It's a one-time thing. It's just a, or it's a recurring thing. I mean, no matter the size of it, it's going to break a little part of yourself inside, for good. And you have to learn to live with it anyway because it's not going to go away. The healing is not, and that's valued for any sort of healing. It's not putting the thing in a box and not looking at it anymore. It's not like at one point you're raising it. Like it didn't, yeah, it didn't exist. It didn't exist. So you're safe now it's gone. It's not gone. It will never be gone. It it's just, you need to understand what happened. And then at one point, you are able to, at least it was my journey that I understood what happened as much as I could, because you can't make a lot of sense of abuse, huh. For real, but at least I allowed myself to understand what I could and then I started to learn to live with it and have a behaviour that I accept, that I judge that are kind to me to move forward. But indeed it stays, that's why it's so important to say because there is no magic recipe for them, but we are not alone to be there living with this
Clare:
Need a deep breath. <Laugh>
Amélie:
Yeah. I was also thinking I'm not breathing enough.
Amélie:
<Laugh> yeah. Yeah. Well, undoubtedly, this was a difficult conversation to have, especially publicly. But as you say, you know, creating these safe spaces, these containers where we can talk to one, another woman to woman and know that there'll be women all over the world listening to this, I think, you know, as you said, being able to normalise, talking about things that are considered shameful is one of the only ways that we're going to be able to heal. I know when I like said out loud, the thoughts that I've been carrying around my whole life, <laugh> about my like lack of worthiness and self-esteem, it was life-changing to say that to another human. So obviously I think the advice around, around this is qualified therapists <laugh>, but, you know, being, being able to start with a conversation with someone that you trust and you know, cares about you is, is a great place to start. And just a book recommendation for anyone who can't afford therapy. You can download 'How to Do the Work', which is full of lots of practical advice and guidance. <Laugh> the best
Amélie:
Book. Yeah.
Clare:
Yeah. As a place to begin, if you feel like there might be something that you need to go back and see to, do that inner work, it's a good place to start. Yeah, and the only book recommendation I say is 'The Body Keeps the Score'. If anything that Amélie has said resonated with you around PTSD, it's an absolutely brilliant book to help your understanding and knowledge of what it is and how it works and your physiological and mental connection to those things works. So, Amélie, do you have any final thoughts as well for our listeners? What would you like to leave them with any further recommendations? <Laugh>
Amélie:
Yeah, I think that the two books you just mentioned are just fabulous. They already got me super far on my journey. I'd like to tell the people who might feel close to anything they heard today or want be an agent of change and make the difference on all this different and difficult stories that there is hope as well, because like Clare mentioned, finding a safe place is possible. The internet is a great place to start with. Actually, it can be. So, you know, for example, the WiCX world has been a safe place for many, many women already. And there is a way to get through this. It's not an easy one. It's not. I don't want to just finish on the fact that it's going to keep, you're going to stay with yourself all your life because it was a little bit dramatic.
Amélie:
It's true. I don't want to sell to people that at one point you're just going to be free of anything. No. Yeah. But the thing is, I am after eight years, sounds like an eternity when I say that, but it was a fabulous journey. It was a fabulous journey because I really discovered myself throughout all this journey. And I opened up, I still learn every day, a few months ago was not able to accept any praise. Somebody was saying good, that's nice. What you do. I was like, come on, you know, I was not taking it. I was not taking anything. And now I'm like, I take it. I love. So the evolution, once the machine is started, once you've got that safe place, once you open up, once you, you did even a little step, the evolution is so wonderful because you really can find happiness. You are going to see yourself growing and becoming yourself. And that has been the most beautiful thing I've done for myself. And I believe that with the right surrounding and the voice opening up more and more, we are here to help each other and it's going to be wonderful. I really want to believe that it's a journey that is accessible for more and more people as we go. And I really, really wish it becomes like that fast <laugh>.
Clare:
Yeah. Yeah. And I suppose just taking my case, an example, you know, I did a couple of years of therapy. I probably was doing a lot of the deep work, but I just hadn't quite got to the realisation that I did in that conversation that changed everything. <Laugh> because for me, it was like a light bulb moment where everything felt different and the future seemed a different prospect, like yeah. Being able to get to that stage of having an insight, that things might be not how you imagined internally. Actually, there is a whole different wide world that's possible for you, if you've never believed that. And yeah, just getting the right support and healing journey for you. I can say it's definitely worth putting the miles in <laugh>. Yeah, even though it's hard, the hardest work you'll ever do is on yourself, for sure. But Amélie, your testaments to what happens when a woman <laugh> turns her pain into power and shines her light brightly in the world. So I'd just like to thank you so much for sharing this safe space with me, giving me the courage to also speak out about my past and the journey that I'm on as well. You're a beautiful human being, and I love you very much.
Amélie:
Thank you, Clare. I love you too. And thank you for creating that space again. I'm very grateful. Okay. And I send a lot of hugs to anybody who is listening now and feels a little bit vulnerable as well.
Clare:
Yeah. And I think I'm going to have to go before I have a cry, but me and Amélie are probably going to have a little cry after this anyway, but thank you to everybody that listened along and if you want to reach out, of course, I'm sure. Well, I for sure would love to hear from you and I'm sure Amélie would be open to that too. So we're going to go and have a cry. Thank you, everybody for listening. We'll see you next time. Bye.
Amélie:
Thank you. Bye.
Clare:
Thanks for listening to the Women in CX podcast with me Clare Muscutt. If you enjoyed the show, please drop us a like, subscribe and leave a review on whichever platform you're listening or watching on. And if you want to know more about becoming a member of the world's first online community for women in CX, please check out womenincx.community and follow the Women in CX page on LinkedIn. Join us again next time when I'll be talking to one of our community members from South Africa about the stigma of infertility and her research in the field of customer-led digital transformation. See you all next time.
