A Life Less Ordinary with Sophie Elwes Sophie Elwes

Working in the NHS for 27 years, Dr Clair Pollard is a Clinical Psychologist and Acting Director for a large psychology mental health trust in South London and a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist. She also sustained a spinal cord injury during her training at the age of 25 which left her paraplegic and a wheelchair user. Undeterred by this, it was her determination and focus on her training that enabled her to come to terms with her acquired disability. She talks about the 'mental health tsunami' we are facing in the UK at the moment,  particularly for young people but adds that the fact that people are talking about it more now is a huge advancement. She shares some great advice about how we can help both ourselves and others.

She talks about the advantages and challenges of having a spinal cord injury in her role and her strategies of how she manages in the workplace by being assertive and not being apologetic, and how she feels she's a better psychologist because of what she's been through.

Find Sophie on Instagram @sophieelwes.

Rosie Wilby is an award-winning comedian, author and podcaster who has appeared a number of times on BBC Radio 4 programmes including Woman's Hour, Saturday Live and Four Thought. Her first book Is Monogamy Dead? was longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize and followed a trilogy of solo shows investigating the psychology of love and relationships. Her new book The Breakup Monologues is based on her acclaimed podcast of the same name and it explores the science of heartbreak and the unexpected joy that can come from breakups.

In this conversation Rosie talks about growing up and coming out as gay in the 1980s and how she found her crowd in the queer community after moving to London. She tells me about her experience of being in a 'secret' relationship for five years with a woman who hadn't come out to her parents and we talk about the internalized homophobia experienced by many and Rosie shares how she's learned to empower and enable others to 'own' and feel more at ease with their sexuality.

Rosie includes a chapter in her book on friendship breakups and we talk about how they are rarely acknowledged in the same way as romantic relationships, and there's no 'script' for them, despite the pain they can cause.

We talk about post-traumatic growth after a painful breakup and how they can eventually lead to healing personal growth, leaving us better equipped to make informed choices in future. Rosie shares her greatest learnings from her breakups and we discuss the merits of singledom.

Rosie's first book, Is Monogamy Dead? explores the need to reinvestigate monogamy for modern times and she shares some inspired insights into how we can reimagine monogamy and make relationships work for us, without piling the pressure and expectation onto one person to provide everything we need.

Rosie is on Twitter @rosiewilby and Instagram @breakupmonologues and you can check her book out here.

Find Sophie on Instagram here.

Alexandra Adams was the first guest on this podcast, and the inspiration behind starting A Life Less Ordinary. She's  also a medical student who is deaf-blind. In 2020 she went into hospital with symptoms of an undiagnosed chronic illness and was there for 17 months during which time she massively deteriorated and experienced some shocking mistreatment at the hands of medical staff and some hugely traumatic experiences, including having covid in hospital in the midst of the pandemic. Alexandra shares these experiences as well as that of finding her community online of others with chronic illnesses.

She tells me of how earlier this year she managed to find a renewed sense of purpose and was able to get back on her medicine degree, as well as a job as a phlebotomist. Sharing her story more recently on Tiktok she blew it up with her myth-busting videos about being a deaf-blind medical student. Alexandra talks openly in this interview about her mental health struggles and she shares some wonderful advice on how to cope with setbacks.

TW: In this episode Alexandra tells me about some shocking stories of mistreatment and lack of care whilst in hospital. It is acknowledged that staff were under immense pressure and there was a huge lack of resources and staffing during this period. Fingers are not being pointed. Alexandra is merely sharing her experiences and her learning from this challenging time. 

Find Alexandra at @alexandraelaineadams and Sophie at @sophieelwes.

Grace Spence Green is a junior doctor and a wheelchair user. Growing up, she had her heart set on becoming a doctor from the age of eight and was a keen competitive climber. In an extraordinary incident in 2018, while she studying at medical school, a man jumped from a height and fell on her, causing her to break her back and sustain a spinal cord injury, becoming a wheelchair user. Choosing not to dwell on the incident, or indeed the man (who has since served time for GBH), Grace returned to medical school and has since started working as a junior doctor in London. 
Grace and I speak about the incident and her feelings around it, the man, and she tells me why she isn’t angry about the situation. She shares how others, and the tabloids, reacted to what happened and her feelings around that.
We speak about Grace’s experience of being a patient at the rehab centre and about her frustrations about that time and the spinal rehab set up. She tells me about how it was for her, returning to the community, and then back to medical school and Grace opens up about her own internalised ableism she realised she had initially and prior to her injury.
It is the boundaries she’s set and her own confidence, she tells me, that has enabled her to establish herself and her stance as a medic who uses a wheelchair. We talk about ‘taking space’ and Grace shares some fantastic insights about this, as well as how she has acquired ‘radical acceptance’ about her situation - choosing to use her situation to enable her to ‘step into her power’ rather than being a victim of circumstance.
Grace shares some fantastic advice for people who have acquired a disability, as well as some words of wisdom for people who might be struggling with something in their lives.
Grace has recently become a Trustee at spinal injuries charity, Back Up and is most active on Twitter.
You can reach out to Sophie on Instagram.

This week I had the pleasure of interviewing Mark Berry who is my friend and personal trainer. We’ve known each other for years and every time I have a session with him, we end up deep in conversation and he is a real fountain of wisdom and life advice, as well as a great trainer.
Growing up on a council estate in Wandsworth, Mark has always been committed to helping others (alongside his love of sport, mainly football). He started back in the 1990s doing care work in a residential care home. Along the way he’s picked up a lot of knowledge working alongside physiotherapists, he trained as a personal trainer, gym instructor and aerobic instructor and has worked at One Trust for 32 years as a care worker for people with learning disabilities and complex and challenging needs. We know each other from his ‘side hustle’ as a personal trainer in my local gym. His philosophy of training is that it is for everyone. ‘If someone wants to, we’ll find a way’ is what he says of this - he’s all about ‘yes we can, not no we can’t.’
To mix things up, we recorded this from the gym, to give listeners a flavour of our relationship and the sort of conversations we have (in between rounds of boxing) - the sound quality is a little compromised but hopefully you can still enjoy Mark’s wise words. 
In this episode we talk about the importance of taking time out, remaining calm and being patient. Mark opens up about his realisations of his self-worth and how he uses this learning to support and lift up others. We talk about training, how it’s good to challenge yourself, and about the limitations put on us particularly in childhood by our upbringing, schooling, medical diagnoses, and we discuss how important it is to question and challenge these. 
As you can hear from the episode, people come in and out and its a true reflection of Mark’s character and how friendly he is. 
I know, for me, my sessions with him provide me with mental health support as much as physical, and we talk about this, particularly for men, and how the gym can provide a safe space for men to talk and get things off their chests, under non-intimidating circumstances.
You can follow Mark or Sophie on Instagram.

Gail Muller is an adventurer, educator and author. Growing up in Cornwall, she was sporty and outdoorsy, but at 14 was told she’d need to use a wheelchair by the age of 40 due to muscular-skeletal issues. She has an extraordinary story of her journey of experiencing chronic pain for 15 years, and dedicating much of that time to finding a solution, which she later did, for the most part.
At 41 she embarked on one of the toughest treks in the world - over 2200 miles in the USA - The Appalachian Trial. She wrote a book about it called Unlost which is an uplifting and moving account of her  journey in the wild outdoors,  dealing with extreme elements and facing her fears. 
In this conversation Gail emphasises how she got into hiking later than most, and encourages others, particularly women, to occupy that role of adventurer too. We speak about her  journey with  chronic pain, having learned a great deal about it and put herself through a multitude of experiences including fasting in a Thai jungle for twelve days, Gail  offers up some great advice for listeners who might be dealing with pain. 
On being told by a doctor that he did not know what the problem was, we discuss the importance of being cautiously critically analytical of professional opinion, asking questions, and not taking a doctor’s advice to ‘give up hope.’
Inspired by Bill Bryson, and after losing a friend to suicide, Gail tells me about her decision to embark on this mammoth trip. She  shares with me her greatest fears, including that which came from being raped as a teenager. Having unpicked some of these, Gail has ‘done the work’  which has enabled her to recognise that these fears reside in her head, and finds ways  to learn how to manage them, which she graciously shares.
We talk about the saying ‘hike your own hike’ - a important metaphor to accept that we’re all on our own journeys, and she tells me how she made peace with doing things ‘her way.’
We speak about tactics for resilience, about surrender and what being so exposed to the harshest of nature’s elements, did for her.

*Trigger warning: during this episode there is mention of sexual assault and suicide
Find out more about Gail on her website or her Instagram. And pick up her book, Unlost.
Find out more about Sophie on Instagram.