The hidden power of sharing your story...
- Angeline Joseph
- May 4
- 5 min read
Updated: May 11
An afternoon that changed things
When lockdown first hit in 2020, I was a single parent living alone with my two children, who were 6 and 10 at the time.
One afternoon they were jumping on the trampoline in the back garden, testing out their somersault skills in the sunshine, and as I held up my phone to capture them I caught a glimpse of my own reflection in the phone screen, and something inside me just collapsed.
The feelings that flooded through me were so unbearably overwhelming I couldn’t engage with my kids, who thankfully carried on happily, none the wiser to what was happening inside me. Thoughts raced through my head as I desperately tried to find a way to make it stop. The emotional pain felt unbearable, even life threatening in that moment, which seems crazy now, but that's the truth of where I was right then.
What I can see clearly looking back is that I'd been struggling with body dysmorphia and disordered eating in some form throughout my entire adult life, though I just wasn't conscious to it then. I'd built coping patterns and always managed to stay one step ahead of feelings I'd buried. What I now understand is that the pain that surfaced that afternoon came from a much older wound, from when my Dad left when I was five years old. It was something I'd always told myself I was fine about, but now understand I was dissociated from. Lockdown took away all of my coping mechanisms so the feelings couldn't stay suppressed any longer and I had no choice other than to actually feel them.
Once the kids were inside and I had a moment alone, I sat on the sofa, cried my eyes out, and pleaded out loud to nobody in particular to take the pain away. And in the moment I said the words "what would it take to heal this?" I heard a shuffling noise to my right.
The Leaflet
A leaflet had slipped down through the crack in the side of my computer cupboard and fallen to the floor.
I bent to pick it up and saw that the front of it read: ‘Inner Belief.’
It was a flyer from an NLP practitioner I vaguely remembered coming across at a spiritual event about a year earlier, stuffed in the cupboard and completely forgotten about. As I read through it, something shifted. There was hope in me that a solution actually existed, and that it had somehow found its way to me at exactly the right moment.
I searched for the practitioner online immediately. She didn't have a website, only a Facebook page with generic NLP information. I needed to know her story, to understand her work, to feel some sense of trust and alignment before making myself that vulnerable, and to know that what she offered would work, but even a conversation on Zoom didn't give me that. So I kept searching.
I couldn't find anyone I related to. Nobody whose story allowed me to trust them enough with something this tender.
Eventually I found a local woman who taught NLP in groups. Her website had video testimonials - and two of them were from local business owners I actually knew. That was enough for me, so I called her.
She didn't have a story I could personally relate to either, but she'd been a GP whose life had been transformed by NLP, and at that point I was so desperately isolated that the chance to be in a virtual room with eight other people, and a payment plan that made it possible, was exactly what I needed!
Katie
It was on that course that I met Katie Rose.
Katie had spent years in a wheelchair, unable to take her children to school or do the ordinary things a young mother wants to do. She would collapse without warning and couldn't move her body. In the year before we met she'd discovered a range of spiritual practices that had helped her go from unable to move, to walking, to joining our NLP course - where she was still experiencing debilitating full body tremors on a daily basis, sporadic, unpredictable and shocking to witness.
From day one of working with NLP techniques, Katie hasn't had a single tremor since.
I know, when you think about it, it's crazy that a subconscious belief could manifest such physical harm to the body, and that shifting the belief with a simple technique could actually make it stop!
Katie and I went on to study timeline therapy together. I felt a deep calling to photograph her and her work, and eventually we decided to do an exchange. I did her brand photoshoot for her website and social media, and in return Katie did her magic healing with me.
Why it worked this time
The healing with Katie affected me more profoundly than anything else I'd experienced in therapy up to that point. I've thought a lot about why, and it's because of the trust I had in Katie that was built entirely through knowing her story. Through watching her transform and through understanding what she'd come through and how, knowing her intentions and seeing that whatever she has been doing works.
So much of the therapeutic work I'd done before hadn't landed the way it could have, because the relationship wasn't there. The nervous system needs to feel safe before the deeper work becomes possible. And for me (and so many others I've discussed this with since) safety comes through story.
Since we met, Katie has published a book - Chronically Awesome - (which lives up to the title) along with two oracle decks. She's a trained yoga instructor, has added many strings to her bow, and is now able to run again after years of chronic illness.
Your Story
I'm not saying everyone needs a story as dramatic or miraculous as Katie's. But I do believe wholeheartedly that when we put our stories out into the world, they have the power to heal in ways that are beautiful and sometimes impossible to predict.
Katie and I recorded her story for a podcast episode of Awakening Angels. It's not yet published as I write this but it will be soon and you'll be able to listen here: https://www.angelinejoseph.co.uk/podcast
You can learn more about sharing your story through photoshoots here: https://www.angelinejoseph.co.uk/photoshoots
If you'd like to chat with me about booking your photoshoot and podcast interview please drop me an email to angelinejoseph444@gmail.com I'd love to hear from you
Angeline x
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