S3 Ep107 Helen Lunnon-Wood: Transition Series #3

Belonging sounds like a warm word until you realise how often we settle for fitting in, shaving off the edges of ourselves to survive a culture. 

We talk about that difference, from early military moments where the team feels like “little and big brothers” to workplaces where everything becomes an adjustment and you start questioning your place. We talk about how culture, not demographics, shapes whether people feel safe, valued, and able to show up fully.

What happens when your sense of worth is tied to a uniform, a unit, a badge, or a calling like service before self? We explore the question “who am I now?” for veterans and especially for female veterans who adapted themselves to fit a masculine environment and then struggle to belong in civilian life. We also touch the sting of disillusionment, the idea that your last interaction with an organisation you love may disappoint you, and why Afghanistan continues to raise moral injury questions for many who served.

The second half turns practical: journalling as a thinking space, deliberate planning that replaces military structure, setting boundaries that protect family life, and learning to separate who you are from what you do so mistakes stop feeling like a verdict.  

We close the series with a clear message: do not white-knuckle transition alone. Build your own table of mentors, coaches, friends, and peers. 

Find Helen on LinkedIn or via her website.

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Transcript

Welcome And Series Focus

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Welcome to Forging Resilience. Real conversations for high performers facing transition. I'm Erin Hill. And join me as I talk with people about challenge change and the adversity they faced in life so we can learn from their experiences, insights, and stories. In this third series, we'll explore and transition through the lens of military life. Also in ways that will resonate far beyond the identity structure, loneliness, belonging support, and what it takes to navigate, challenge, change when the old role no longer fits.

Belonging Versus Fitting In

SPEAKER_04 0:45

So Helen, welcome back to the third conversation in this mini-series. And I'm going to kick it off by asking you, talk to me a little bit about your experience of belonging versus fitting in.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

So we we've come across this idea a couple of times in what we've talked about, haven't we? And I think this is a fundamental bit of one of the difficult bits of transition, but not just transition in in any organization, in any place, if you are trying to fit in versus able to belong, then you're in a different mental health place. Because the fitting in, you're you're carving, you're taking stuff that uh bits of you that you know either the place doesn't agree with or you feel you have to hide or or just doesn't work. Um and by dint of that you're reducing yourself and you're avoiding bits of yourself. Whereas with belonging, you know, you're kind of all in. They're the the group who they are, they love you, they put up with you, they they want you there as you are. And and for me, that's where that's interesting. There's there's a couple of places it's interesting. One is for me, the belonging and fitting in had no link to the number of females that were there with me. Um, it had a link to the culture of the either the course or the squadron or whatever I was in. Um so one of the first places I really felt like I belonged to was actually my flying course, who were, I think there's 15 of us all together, but I just felt that was exactly where I was supposed to be. They they just welcomed me. They didn't, they didn't, I mean, don't get me wrong, there was there was amusing banter, not banter bullying banter, and I there's a whole conversation about that. But banter designed around we're a group together and we love each other, and this is a love personified um, you know, some the banter was like, I once made one of my course mates a cup of tea with some salt in it, um, which in case you've never had a cup of tea with some salt in it, it's a terrific experience. Um, so I got no end to banter about that. That's the kind of banter I'm talking about, not oh, you know, you're the token girl and blah, blah, blah. Um, and and banter in quotation marks around that that bit. So that was the first experience of really belonging. And then you have another place where I went into a space of fitting in where everything was an adjustment, everything was not right, everything was gender first and capacity and competency almost irrelevant. Um, and I've still never really understood what drove that culture. And it might have been something, and I'm not trying to say I did this myself. What I mean is was I experiencing fitting in fitting in in other parts of my life, uh, but I projected it into the place I was feeling it at work, if that makes sense. So do we lay it across? But fitting in and belonging is just it's just really fascinating.

When Culture Makes You Feel Safe

SPEAKER_02 4:15

And when you go through the transition of leading the military, at least in my experience, and I know this to be case, and this is where I go a bit gender-fied, and I, you know, this, I don't think this just happens to females, but my experience as a female, my experience of talking to other females, it's the female element of it is quite striking, is we adjusted some parts of ourselves to fit into the military, and now we're not in the military. We don't really fit into the female definition of a civilian, the civilian female. Yet we're no longer in the military. So who are we? We we we end up in this space, and we did a lot of work. One of the work the job, one of the things I've been working with, albeit about it about a year ago now, I guess, was um a great thing called the Female Veteran Transformation Project, which is um a fantastic resource for employees, employers who are employing female veterans. It's run by a lady called Stacey Denyer and Lisa Jarvis, um, and they've done this phenomenal work on how to support females who are coming out of the military and trying to belong in the civilian workspace, mainly in within the civilian workspace. Um, that's where the work was. And it's really, it's there's been some really big conversations about how do females define themselves when they're no longer in the male again, quotation marks, um, or masculine role of the military. It's a really big question.

SPEAKER_04 5:53

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

Um now we'll talk about something less. Start heavy.

SPEAKER_04 6:02

We are going to heavy warmed up. Um so i if if you were to reflect back then to that flying course, if if what what what was it that was what was it about that culture that created that sense of belonging? Or what was it that drew out of you that sense of belonging?

SPEAKER_02 6:24

Yeah, yeah. I did wonder whether it was one of both ways. Like, like, I think it was a combination of there was definitely a sense of we're all in this together. Definitely a sense of that.

SPEAKER_04 6:34

That must have been I'm I'm guessing that must have been in some ways commun communicated then.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Yeah, I think they um yes.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

Yeah, I think I think well communication is what 70% body language anyway, and you know, a good mixture of that. And they definitely treated me. Um I always say my like the good bits of my military experience were when they were the the people I was working with were like my little and big brothers. And anyone who's got brothers knows exactly the positives and negatives of that. And there were some times it was, I mean, don't get me wrong, there were times when I was like, God, I'm gonna kill them all. They just kids. Um, but it was in a it was in that sense of you know, a healthy brotherly relationship with them, all of them, in slightly different ways per the personalities, but they were really um they you know, there was never a um sense that they thought I was just there as a token effort. You know, when we were struggling, or when I was struggling, or when they were struggling, it was a team effort. You know, it was we're in this together, and we'd sit down and we'd be in the crew and we're talking through like, why don't we like this instructor, or why don't we, or can anyone get the PFL right? You know, how what are your top tips for pressing, pressing go on the radio transmission and then your brain falling out of your head and going, you know, and so you you have this combined experience where what I was experiencing, what they were experiencing in terms of flying was the same. And so there's an element of that. And then there was just an element of our, you know, your social life is kind of caught up in it all anyway. And they just they we all used to go and hang out and you know, go to the pub, go to the curry house, go clubbing, whatever it was. Together it was a group, group thing. I was invariably the only female sat at the curry table. Um, but again, you go back to the little and big brother analogy, and you kind of just even now you can tell I've got a massive smile on my face. It's a great experience. Yeah, and I'm still friends with quite a lot of them still now.

SPEAKER_04 8:48

Yeah, I bet. I bet. In in terms of your own journey and and some of the people that you've worked with then in developing further that that sense of of belonging. What what what comes to your mind as as as we talk about that

Leaving Service And Finding Connection

SPEAKER_04 9:05

once? Yeah, potentially maybe through the lens of experience, leaving the an organization like the military. How do how do we go about belonging?

SPEAKER_02 9:16

Yeah, that's a really interesting one. And I think some people really struggle, actually. I don't think there's a I don't think there's a magic wand of um fixing a feeling that you don't belong somewhere. I think you have to be honest about yourself about what the feeling is. Um and I think there are elements that perhaps leave the military and join a military like organization precisely in order to avoid that sense that they don't want to be out and alone and on their own. They want something where they feel like they belong, even if they don't they they want that sense of feeling. Um I think from my perspective, one of the things that helped me as I left was connection and connection with not only veterans who had left and were going through it maybe at a different space, um, but also people who were still in and finding the balance as you sort of b warp from one to the other. Um but do you know what I'm really I'm really curious what your answer to that question is, because you've had quite a different experience of

Separating Identity From The Job

SPEAKER_02 10:35

it.

SPEAKER_04 10:35

Yeah. So I I think if you'd have asked me that five or six years ago, I wouldn't have known how to answer that. Um, but what I would say is I sit here today is knowing the difference between who I am and what I did. Um so that separation of those different things. Um learning to understand the value that I bring as a person, um yeah, and as you alluded to there, same same but different, the support and the connection to to ask those questions, but also to be able to answer them. Um and a lot of that is looking inward. Um, my personal belief is that if I am I've definitely felt like I've tried to fit in before constantly. And the way that I described this the other I can't remember what I was describing it the other day, is it's almost like if I was in a garden, the way that I was trying to fit in is constantly looking over the garden fence to see what everyone else was doing to keep their own garden in check, whereas my whereas mine was shit state because I was always I was always focused on other people, worried, worries, yeah, about about my own my own stuff, you know. So um so it takes a lot quite a lot of courage to jump down from the fence and get pulling out the weeds. Um yeah, so so looking inward, yeah, but and and for me it was the it was the gift of of mentorship and coaching and um like I said separ separating myself so when law win, lose or draw, um whatever unit I happen to have served in or mistakes I make as a dad or a husband, as a businessman, as a coach, or a brother, then yeah, I'm I'm separate from that. It doesn't define me, it's just something I've done. Um which is a challenge when when you think you're at the pinnacle. Um so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

I think it's um really odd interesting that phrase you just said that and I will almost quote it because I wrote it down as it but it you said the value I bring as a person. And I think that's a really important bit for people who may have tied their identity to their military service. And now for whatever reason, it might be they've reached retirement age, it might be that they've been militarily discharged, it might be that they've you know been discharged for other reasons, it might be that they've chosen to leave for lots of reasons, but who am I? Do I have value as a person of society now that I am no longer defined by the military and defined and because when you join the military, you join with this grand, there's a certain lovely not naivety, but hope in a higher calling, you know, service before self when you join. And that define that you want that to define part of who you are, and your experience in there, or one's experience in the military might not live up to that initial high standard. And um, you know, you you if you're defining yourself as against that initially high standard, you know, you then end up in a space of 20 years later or 10 years later or even five years later. How do I now define myself if I have not lived up to those standards, or if the military has not lived up to those standards? And I know that's become quite a challenge for some people with some of the issues that have been knocking around the military recently. And that's quite a challenge for females as well. Um, and we can go into some of the gnarly bits of that. But who are you now that you one have how who are you? Who is someone when they join with this like high moral value and values and beliefs that they join the military for when their experience hasn't lived up to that? And and almost invariably the experience can't live up to that. You know, the military sends people to war. It has it exists in a horrendous brace base, there is no black and white, and that questions our values, it questions our beliefs, it questions our morality, it questions our decision making. So, who are you at the end of that experience or in the midst of it? That and what do you become? Do you like who you've become? Because the value you bring as a person, you know, have you set that against a standard that you feel

Disappointment With The Organisation You Love

SPEAKER_02 15:20

you've not attained, or the military has not allowed you to attain, or the military has not attained for you? And then massive questions.

SPEAKER_04 15:27

Yeah. And and I think for for me, what comes up as I listen to you speak there is I don't, in my experience, you can never get enough of what you don't need. And for me, that means if I'm looking to the external or to this promotion or to that unit or to this job or pay rise to to build a sense of worth or value or belonging, yeah. Good luck with that. Send me a message, let me know how you get on.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

There was, do you know what? There was um there's a quote, and I wish I could find out who said this quote, and I can't. I'm I I've Googled it and searched it and AI'd it and I can't find it anywhere. But the the quote is the last interaction with the service you love will always disappoint you. And what I think that's really interesting is it doesn't matter whether you left after two years or you left as a four-star, that last interaction, it might be a series of interactions, right? It might not be just one event, it might be those last couple of years, and that's probably what it was in my case. You will be disappointed, and it might be disappointed with yourself, but it might really be disappointed with what the service is, or you've kind of realized it. And it's kind of like when you're a young child and you think your parents are invincible, immortal, and perfect, and you have this lovely, like, oh well, it's my parents, and then sort of from the age of seven, eight, nine onwards, you begin to realise they're fallible, that they don't know all the answers, that they get it wrong quite a lot, and all this kind of stuff. And as a teenager, you really rebel against them and all that. And I think there's something in that transition of when you join the military, when you join any organization, you think they're wonderful and you know fabulous, and actually through your interactions as you grow as a person, as they but they're still with you, you begin to understand the kind of Warts and all more honest truth, but you also see them making the mistakes, and you have to sit there and go, Well, who am I now? When I work for an organization, I can see doing these things that I now think is questionable. How do I react? Do I act as a child, you're infallible, you're perfect, or do I go, no, no, I'm I'm the senior teenager now, you know? I can go and be independent. I don't need to rely on my moral value being given by my by the company I work for, by the military in this case.

SPEAKER_04 17:48

Yeah, and and and again, I I know from my own experience and quite a lot of people I work with that is that get caught in the loop of doing, so it's more and more and more and more trying to find that thing. Yes, or answer that question, yeah, and yeah, to slow down and find that

Afghanistan And Moral Injury Questions

SPEAKER_04 18:10

space or to answer those questions, yeah, they don't come quickly, and yeah, it they they can ruffle some feathers, right?

SPEAKER_02 18:21

Right. And and the military, you know, having sort of work with a couple of people were you know, and kind of I guess we're of the same era, you know, Afghanistan was a big part of our military existence. And and what I've seen from a couple of people now is they didn't have a problem with us and what we did in Afghanistan when it was going on. And and there were others who did. I'm not suggesting you know that doesn't exist as well, but they these particular examples, they didn't have a problem with what they did in Afghanistan. They knew the sacrifices that were being asked and they understood to a degree why they were being done and what what we signed up to do. Where they really struggled then is where they see, after all that, they see moral failure, they see a fairly shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan. There's now nothing there, you know, all the things that we went in with, these great ideas that we've put females into schools and and all that, you know, bring democracy, etc., was just gone. And so the that moral I don't know quite what the morality we went to Afghanistan with off the back of 9-11 was squandered when we extracted ourselves in such an ignominious way. And I've seen quite a lot of people be very, very angry and very, very um, you know, really question their identity and their what they've done with their careers and that and the choices they've made. And it goes into that, what value did I bring then and what value do I add now? It goes into that value space. And I guess I'm I guess that's broader going into the moral injury space, which is always a a dark, difficult place to kind of I don't mean dark mental health-wise, I mean it's it's it's it's tricky to walk through the the moral injury cave network that is there. Um and it's different for each person.

SPEAKER_04 20:27

Yeah, 100%. 100%. So uh looking at your transition and and and values and morals that you've uh taken that have worked for you in the military, do you st have have those changed

Values Shift Through Parenthood

SPEAKER_04 20:46

and adjusted as as you have uh through this process of of leaving such an organization?

SPEAKER_02 20:55

Um I think I don't think it changed necess I it's I it's almost the other way around. I think my values and morals have changed and my priorities had changed, and therefore I left, rather than I left and they changed, if that makes sense. So I think I was I was becoming a different person. Some things um the military, the decisions that have been made uh Afghanistan was but one of them, um the RAF had its own challenges at the time as well. But I also for me in my perspective, I was becoming a parent. I was a parent, I became a parent, and my my priorities changed and my sense of where what a good life was changed. Um and I'm glad they did. I'm I am glad they did. Um and so I've what I came to realise was actually difficult though it may be. Um a better life for me as the individual was actually outside of the demands of the military. So I think it worked the other way around. I don't know. Did it how does it work for you?

SPEAKER_04 22:13

Again, I'd I my experience is unique because I joined Young and left Young. And then I had a good 10, 12, 13 years of blissful ignorance before I got to ask myself and be asked these questions.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

Right. Okay. Do you think I'm really curious about that? Um do you think that was deliberate blissful ignorance? You call it blissful ignorance, or was it deliberate? I don't want to deal with that yet.

SPEAKER_04 22:47

No, I don't think it was deliberate on a conscious level, I don't want to deal with it. I just wasn't even aware.

unknown 22:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 22:53

I just wasn't even aware. And if I was, I can squash that right down, along with everything else. Game face. Yeah, potentially, if

Competence Triggers And The Game Face

SPEAKER_04 23:05

I'm gonna be honest, if I'm gonna be honest. And and so I think one of the first times I actually caught this, I'm not sure if I told you, but I was sat upstairs in in my flat with my wife before we had kids, and I was studying Spanish. I'd left the military at this stage and I was working as a security consultant in hot and dusting countries and doing a month there and a month back at home. Um it's it was it was a bit of a dream life, really, because we weren't that busy when we're away, and and all I had to do was mountain bike and and feed myself when I was when I was back at home where my wife was working quite a lot. Um I wonder what your wife said about all that. We're still together 22 years later. The evidence speaks for itself, and I was studying Spanish, and um she was downstairs, and and I remember studying Spanish verbs, and studying for me was was a new thing as a 30-something year old, and I absolutely lost my shit at at the trying to wrap my head around all these different tenses of verbs because it just comes so naturally in English. Um yeah, and and I I yeah, I picked up my books and I launched them, and I actually I I yeah, I reflect back now that oof, maybe that was slightly over the top. Um it was yeah, the first inclination if I reflect back of there's something else going on here. And nothing going wrong, by the way. Just that there's just some words on a paper, they're not doing anything. What really what's the response to that?

SPEAKER_02 24:40

Um and below that, you know, yeah, just some words on a paper, but but what so what was below it? What do you think?

SPEAKER_04 24:46

Yeah, I can answer that very quickly. That I'm thick, that I'm not clever enough, I don't get it. And therefore you're gonna be yeah, but that's that's that's what my brain goes to. I know, good way to fix this. I will go out on my mountain bike, shot of adrenaline and nature, two for one, or go go into the gym. Um, yeah, don't deal with it. Almost use it in it as fuel, you know. So it works really well until it doesn't work. Big time, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Right. And we've been there super competent people, super able.

SPEAKER_04 25:18

Yep, and I and I can speak my language fairly well, and then this second language took its time.

SPEAKER_02 25:26

Interesting. And so when you reflect back on this was a challenge to my competence, is that it feels like what you're saying is being seen as competent, myself seeing myself as competent, but other people seeing myself as competent, you as competent. That's what that was important to you. And was that fuelled by you were in the military, you were super competent in there, whatever, or where where's that need for competence come from?

SPEAKER_04 25:58

Yeah, I could take it back to the beginning of our conversation, the desire to be to fit in and belong. So if I'm seen as thick or or or stupid, then that's that's that's highlighting myself for the wrong reasons.

SPEAKER_02 26:09

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_04 26:10

Um, so it's almost a design, yeah, more than to be competent, I was aware that I f I felt incompetent.

SPEAKER_02 26:17

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04 26:18

Yeah, but that's that was more present as I reflect back.

SPEAKER_02 26:21

And consciously so.

SPEAKER_04 26:23

Yeah, hence the reason the books got launched and uh went for a brilliant mountain bike ride. But yeah, but what's what's interesting though is that yeah, I'm just pausing because it sounds like I'm gonna let my ego go, but I'm not. I think there's is that that the third language came very quickly because I could I got a bit of encouragement, relaxed into it, and the mistakes didn't mean anything about me. I go back to that separation. In fact, I was trying, and people would encourage the effort, not necessarily the outcome.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

Yeah. Yeah. Which is which is fantastic because it's like, you know, you learn or you learn from failure. There is no like fail and quit kind of thing. It's learn or learn from failure.

SPEAKER_04 27:08

If if you choose to see it that way, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:11

Quite right. It's a deliberate action. It's a deliberate, you know. And and maybe that goes back as well to back to your idea of the value you bring is one of the values you bring is my I'm I'm here, I'm I'm not in I'd find it more difficult to fail and quit than I would to fail and learn. So you as a person are a you know, there's there's something in that I'm very badly talking about.

SPEAKER_04 27:39

No, no, no, it's fine. And and and and so talking about values, I'm not sure what values I would have had when I was younger, that I would have adopted whatever mantras you'd have thrown at me. Um since learning about myself, then then then yeah, I've got three or four that that stand out to me that that can that I'm reminded of because they're sat on a post-it note down here, so they're constantly there. Um, and uh that can, when I choose, guide decisions and responses. Um very deliberate, yeah, very deliberate in intentional, yeah. It doesn't always work, still humans still make mistakes, still respond at reacts.

Deliberate Living After Military Structure

SPEAKER_02 28:20

But mistakes is completely that's within all of this, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:25

Big time, big time, yeah, yeah. And forgiveness. Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_02 28:31

You're right. And what you're maybe talking there is about very intentional choices and very intentional decisions. And um, I was talking about this on Friday actually at workshop, d deliberateness. And I think sometimes when um we look at things, and this is kind of slightly off topic, but you people pe you know, if you if you you have to go for deliberateness, otherwise you're kind of almost selecting ambivalence, or I guess obsessiveness, which is the other side of the coin. But deliberateness is about like how do I want to be like I've defined myself in the military, and this is kind of one of the things I've been thinking about for the last year and a half, is I've always defined myself as part of the military. That's been part of my definition. So, how do I now define myself? How do I deliberately act in a way in accordance with the reasons why I left? You know, I left for all these reasons. You know, being deliberate now about my choices, about the fact that yes, I control my diary. But deliberately, one of the reasons I left was to be present as a mother and to be present as part of the family, because my last couple of jobs hadn't really afforded me that as much as I wanted. And so now my diary choices are if it doesn't fit between nine and three, it's got to be one-offs, or every so often, not you know, regular weekly meetings or regular weekly things. It's if it doesn't fit between nine and three, it's a no unless it's a one-off. Um, and that deliberateness of how I want to structure this part of my life has been really important.

SPEAKER_04 30:18

Yeah, definitely. So, again, to to learn about myself and how I would have shown up. Again, I would have had some blanket, yeah, I'm gonna say Chad, um, because we're both ex-ministry, some bad Chad motivational phase uh phrase. Uh not that I've got them tattooed on me, but um secondhand picket. I know, but we're not gonna go there. Um that that would have driven a decision, and it would probably be an unconscious where's to slow down, and yeah, there you go. Again, recognise who I am, what I bring, and what I want to bring, um, is is is quite intentional. Yeah, otherwise it's just default, and for me, that would be busy um doing more to try and prove, and I still catch it over over the Easter. We've talked about this just trying to slow down. Oh, new stuff bubbles to the surface. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:10

I've got to be busy, can't just sit. You know, if rest is unproductive, I feel slightly shamed. Self-shamed. No one else is shaming me, but self-shamed because you know, even when I'm supposed to be like resting or on vacation, like I want to be doing stuff, you know, because to just literally rest. Why would you do that? Why would you do that?

Labels Tattoos And The Word Veteran

SPEAKER_02 31:35

But it's really interesting. Can I just go back to can I pick up one thing just a not tattooing yourself with insignia and all this kind of stuff? But it's one of the ways I think, and we do it whilst we're in the military, you know, there are people, plenty of people who, you know, have got their, you know, regiment or their squadron or their whatever particular badge tattooed on themselves, or maybe the the um, you know, particular uh phrase or whatever that links them to that regiment, to that squadron and all this. So there's that identity that you form and then you carry with you. And if you you've done the tattooing, tattooing whilst you're in the service, you t you literally take it with you, right? But there are a lot of there's quite a few people I've noticed who've left. And then in order to keep the identity, they've had tattoos done of of their past, you know, like some people I know have had their RAF wings tattooed on them and things like that, not me. Uh, but um others have, or they've had their squadron, the you know, the squadron crest or the RAF crest or whatever, because that's that's military I come from. So um it's really interesting about the identity you take with you and how you try and keep hold of it in some way. Um one of the things that I when I was doing the female veterans transformation project thing, where there was a big conversation, about 60 of us in a room, it's really wonderful, really engaging. But one of the big conversations was how people identify themselves um having left the military. And and more females will say they won't use the term veteran. Um, and and quite a lot of men don't use that. Um, veterans sort of tied to the idea of perhaps Second World War and male and probably white and of a certain age, you know, whereas a lot of perhaps our generation or the generations who are coming through will be in the space of maybe calling themselves ex-serving or ex-military, or even tie themselves into, like the tattoos, into a regiment or into uh a military service, you know, um, and that kind of thing. And so it's just really interesting about how people use or define themselves and the identity they have as you transition from one to the other, you know. And when I say one to the other, it for me military to civilian, you military to civilian. So it's it's yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:02

Yeah, I can and for me it goes back to having an awareness of the labels and the language that we that we describe ourselves with. And it's interesting that I can caught myself uh yeah saying I'm in the marines. I'm not, I've not been in the business.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

Present tense, present tense, right?

SPEAKER_04 34:18

You know, so how how often does it happen when I'm not conscious?

SPEAKER_02 34:22

Um Marine, always a marine.

SPEAKER_03 34:28

Oh honestly, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:33

But yeah, kind of kind of really fascinating, and and we've I guess I guess one of the things we've been we've been kind of talking about is um we're talking about identity after. And we talked about um well

Meeting Your Younger Self Again

SPEAKER_02 34:55

there's a couple of things in that that I'm kind of interested in exploring. Uh but one of the ones we talked about was meeting a 17-year-old self at the gate. And so and I and for me that was a good experience. For me that was a healthy experience. I enjoyed seeing him again, and I still do. And it's been part of this year where I go, oh, you know, that's that's been quite healthy and and interesting. For others that's just not the case. You know, the 17-year-old self was actually escaping to the home life, or poor parenting, or no money, or whatever. And so I came across it with one of the people I'm coaching, like actually when you say to them you're meeting your 17-year-old self at the gate, they hate it. Like, because the military has been so much to them.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

And I can see where people where the military has been everything because it was a rescuer to then step out of the military.

SPEAKER_02 36:02

You must feel like you've been dropped from you know, dropped from 50,000 feet and are just free-falling. And the last place you want to go back to is what you were when you were 17. Um So it's just been really interesting exploring that idea, and I've been thinking about it since our last podcast about that phrase and how delicate that phrase actually could be when you talk about that kind of thing. And it sounds like I'm saying the military is all bad, or well, or everyone who's broken joins the military. The military provides a brilliant way of escaping some of those things.

SPEAKER_04 36:39

It's an incredible system that delivers an incredible uh is incredibly efficient at what it does.

SPEAKER_03 36:46

Right.

SPEAKER_04 36:47

And its primary role really is is is the pointy end of stuff, even if you know, war really, when it comes to it. So for me, it's recognising that in my my own journey that there's certain loops that haven't been closed out, like going back to meet my 17-year-old self. But for me, what it is it's it's not a 17 or 19-year-old as it is as it was when I joined up, but it's it's a 10-year-old that thought he had to do all that.

SPEAKER_02 37:17

Yeah, yeah, right, and nothing's gone wrong. Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 37:25

Yeah, so it's not even 17.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

Yeah, and it's and it's really interesting because there were pros and cons. Like what one of the one lady I know who's left now, but she grew up in quite a dysfunctional house where food was a real dysfunction. And on one side of the family, uh, the mother's side, it was all about you've got to be as thin as possible, don't eat, you know, shame, all this. On the other side, the father was just, you know, snacking, eating, hiding, and all this. So she grew up with this really dysfunctional food sort of um role modelling. And actually, it was the military. She joined the military quite young to escape, uh and she admits that. But actually, the military, because we're so bloody regimented, three meals a day, you'll eat this, you know, dunk, dunk, dunk, sources it. It will not source it, that's probably too much, but it gave her another baseline of what healthy food, healthy eating needed to be. Um, and actually now she's left, she's gone back to she hasn't like she hasn't become anti-food or gone into one of the poor role models. But what she's realized is just how bad the role modelling had been as a child. And actually, the military provided

Journalling Planning And Owning Opinions

SPEAKER_02 38:35

this space to go, no, no, no, we've got you. This is what it should look like. And now she can actually go forward. So when you talk about meeting your 17-year-old self, actually there's an awareness of what that 17-year-old and 17-year-old, as you say, 19, 10, there's a childlike quality when you join.

SPEAKER_04 38:52

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:53

And super, super interesting. But again, if you've come out of a space that isn't healthy when you're that young, and then suddenly the military drops you for whatever reason, you may feel like you're in this free space, or you might just feel like you're on port. You you you you don't know what to do, and frozen, um, or invisible, or feeling like you don't even know what the next step is, and then the next 10. So you go into and maybe you return to your 17-year-old's house, or maybe you fall back into those ways, or there's a resolution.

SPEAKER_04 39:37

I th yeah, it complex is would would wouldn't even begin to to summarize it. But um so in again, just just drawing the conversation on how do you go about being purposeful and intentional now that you've left and having those conversations with your 17-year-old self and and transitioning?

SPEAKER_02 40:01

So I I guess I do a couple of things. The first one is I journal or diary, or even just write a sentence about things that come up, um, which has been instructive because I've reread it over the last year. But also, there's genuine added value for me. It's a meditation, it's a thinking space, it's uh empty it out my head space, it means I can sleep better. And that so that's been very deliberate, and it's in that deliberate thing. I'm not obsessive. If I don't do it like I missed a day, that's fine. I'm not ambivalent, I know it's important for me. I'm in that deliberate bit in the middle. So that's the first thing. The second thing is I have a diary that I'm my my husband will be like, I know what you're gonna say, you're gonna say, so tomorrow. Um and I will say that, you know, pretty much every evening. And on a Sunday, it's like, so this week, you know, and I've got things that I we all need to have got through. Not achievements, achievements wrong word, but you know, like dentist appointment, or you know, this who's picking up then and what's this going on. So the the so tomorrow about the deliberate planning and trying to impose my own structure on it. Um because I need that I'm I definitely realize that leaving the military means structure was a really good, useful part of my day when I was in the military and I need it. And then the last one is actually I just quite like being able to be I I I'm less scared about my own opinion anymore. I you I I was very good at my professional opinion when I was in the military. But my personal opinion, you kind of you have that line in the military. This is my professional, what's your personal opinion? I think it's a strong idea. Um but you wouldn't say it necessarily, or or you'd say it in a certain way, like, uh excuse me, uh sir, do you think we could have a word? That's a terrible idea. Uh whereas now I'm like, oh that's rubbish. Um so I've learnt to be much more comfortable in my own skin

Create Your Own Table Of Support

SPEAKER_02 42:10

in terms of opinion, I think. In terms of being able to say my opinion and not be the only female voice in the room, and not be, you know, uh why is she saying that? You know, she. Um so that's probably my three things that I've learned. What about you? You've got a lot longer to look back on.

SPEAKER_04 42:35

Yeah, I think I think the biggest thing that jumps out of me is is is having some sort of support. Um so I I I am very fortunate that I've got a that I have created as well, by the way. It hasn't fallen into my lap. Uh what I yeah, exactly. A board of advisors, coaches, mentors, friends, colleagues, connections.

SPEAKER_02 43:00

Yeah, no to the band writing it down.

SPEAKER_04 43:02

Well, I I'll tell you about this. I was having a conversation with with Sharon, who we both know, and and I had at mountain biking, I had a crash, or I hit a tree, and the tension went on instantly, and I recognized all this tension that I sometimes get in my jaw is I am anticipating an impact that's not coming, yeah, which is fascinating to catch. Anyway, I relaxed into that, cycled back up the hill to do another shuttle, and I I recognized I've been waiting to be invited to a table. Why don't I create my own table? I've already got my own table. Boom. This person for that, this person for this. Um so yeah, this yeah, yeah. Create your own table. And we've got a whole joke about tables from Japan uh around that. Which I'll tell you another time. Um yeah, so I think that's probably the biggest one. Um, the second one is learning to catch my story or okay with my story and and and communicate it to the right people who are not going to judge they're gonna help support or or guide again um the story is the big one and um the last one i've jotted down is yeah using you using fear as a compass what what's uncomfortable what can I lean into what can I learn not all the time um yeah public speaking is what I'm gonna do about identifying because I think one of the things perhaps that happens is people shy away from that's unknown and I don't want to go there big time and it kind of goes into everything it goes into which company you decide to go and work for it you know like go and be in a military but in a different company I don't want to look at the bit that's makes me scared yeah and I'll I'll tell you how I see it how I see it show up is long distance endurance events generally there's a whole conversation about endurance versus resilience that you have just cranked open and that's our next podcast there we go there we go hey um Helen if if we were to start to

Closing Advice To Reach Out

SPEAKER_04 45:10

wrap it up now what what what do you think you would want somebody to know or even your your younger self to know in terms of transition and change 100% there are people out there who've done it before you who've gone through something similar lean on them find their support even if you are in the darkest darkest of places and let's not kid ourselves some people end up in that space through transition reach out please reach out because 100% talking to people who'd done it before took a load of the pressure off and that was probably the most important thing out of my transition experience so far and it's ongoing and it's ongoing uh and they still uh I I still reach out like what did you say create your own table board of advisors but but go and go and find the support you need it's definitely out there love it awesome and thanks once again for today again looks like we've got something to talk about next time yeah yeah we've queued up the next one look at that legends I love it it's always good to chat all right speak soon