Interview with Victoria Pearson about Kill The Goblins

My good friend, Victoria Pearson, who has her own channel on YouTube and does mini daily gratitude shorts every morning, where you can take a breath with her, interviewed me about my new book, Kill The Goblins, How to get the negative voices in your head to shut up. She has been instrumental in me writing and publishing this book, having helped me with the content, layout and also promotion. I am eternally grateful to her for giving me a platform to speak on.

Here's the video: 

Book review: The Foot & Ankle Pain Bible & The Neck & Shoulder Pain Bible, by Chris Kidawski

The Foot & Ankle Pain Bible: A Self-Care Guide to Eliminating the Source of Your Foot Pain by Christopher J. Kidawski
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wish I'd found this sooner!

I used to suffer planters fasciitis, but after 18 months of pain, I found an exercise on YouTube that I did three times a day that resolved it in two months, but since then I have developed foot tendonitis, but after reading this book - in two hours which is unheard of for me - I know what exactly is causing it - and how to resolve it. I am beyond excited.

This is not a long book, but it explains everything clearly AND there are pictures and diagrams to show you how to do the exercises the author, Chris Kidawski talks about. It is all muscular. I can't wait to get stuck in. I am simply waiting on some mobility tools to help me (massage balls).

So many people think that pain meds, immobilising the painful part of the body or icing it will help - it doesn't. They think yoga or pilates or a bit of stretching is all you need. It's not. You have to work out what your body is doing, and look further than the site of pain. I had pain in my arm and fingers when I slipped a disc in my neck and trapped a nerve. It paralysed a whole back muscle, but that was not the site of the injury it was the discs in the neck.

And Chris is right, when he says: "With our want-it-now society, very few people are willing to do what it takes to reverse their diseases and ailments in a more natural, permanent way."

Chris Kidawski has a degree in Kinseology, is a movement, and fascia expert and strength trainer. He knows how to put in all the information you need and get straight to the point. Most helpful book I've read in ages. I have just bought his book on shoulder and neck pain!



View all my reviews The Head, Neck & Shoulder Pain Bible: A Self-Care Guide To Eliminating Upper Body Pain by Christopher J. Kidawski
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another excellent book from Christopher Kidawski.

It's full of clear instructions and explanations. As someone who slipped two discs in my neck, due to muscle tension this is definitely something for me, and I'm already using it. It does involve buying the recommended tools, and also confidence to try this out yourself. Although I did email Chris for help and he responded immediately with guidance videos.

I also have had a lot of physio help for more than a decade and used many exercises, so am confident I won't damage myself because I know what pain is damage pain, and which is releasing muscle - I've had physios release muscles before, it's initially sore, but in the long term really helpful.

There are pictures of how to go about treating yourself, and diagrams of the muscles structures.

I would definitely recommend.

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Interview with Author Lisa Shambrook about Kill The Goblins

Happy Publication Day to Kill The Goblins! 🥳

Todays sees the release of my first foray into non-fiction.

Happy Publication day to my new book is called Kill The Goblins! How to get the negative voices in your head to shut up.

It provides in-the-moment strategies to quiet a noisy mind.

It is available across all platforms in ebook and paperback format.

"Tools to quiet a noisy mind

Miranda K, a veteran of trauma recovery, is here to provide in-the-moment strategies for day-to-day living.

Equip yourself with tools to kill the stream of negative thoughts in your head that stop you from pursuing your dreams, and distracts you from living the life you want.

Take an in-depth look at potential root causes, and learn how to change the way you think and feel to gain inner balance and security every day.

Free of self-help and personal development jargon, Kill The Goblins looks at what it takes to quiet the mind and recover yourself on a daily basis." 

Review: What Are You Hungry For? by Deepak Chopra

What Are You Hungry For?: The Chopra Solution to Permanent Weight Loss, Well-Being and Lightness of Soul by Dr Deepak Chopra
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is my first Deepak Chopra book. I've read articles and interviews and listened to him in various places, but up until now I hadn't really considered a book of his until I read the title of this.

I've been trying to lose weight for a while, and suspect my inability to do so isn't so much about the food, or diets, but about myself. So with that in mind I picked it up and I was not disappointed. It combined many ideas and themes that I already know and understand with some conclusions which were new and I hadn't considered before. There are a few journaling exercises in here and a lot to think about and process, plus a meditation routine and some recipes.

What I like is that Deepak Chopra comes from both sides of the medical science, both Eastern and Western, having been a doctor in both and combines the ideas from both in ways that make it much easier to understand what would help you. He uses plenty of evidence based off his own practice and stories from patients to explain and provide examples for what he is talking about, which is very much crossing the spiritual self with the physical self.

It's about being conscious and aware of yourself and your life and how to consider your entire wellness inside and out. He explains it all very clearly without using any complicated terms or jargon from the spiritual or personal development realm.

I would definitely recommend it if you are wondering why you can't lose weight.



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Self-trust over fear – how to overcome the fear of yourself

Does the way you feel frighten you?

Are you scared you’re a terrible person?

Do you believe there is something about you to be feared?

Becoming scared of yourself – or a part of yourself – occurs when you have feelings you don’t know how to express or process and become fearful of them. It can start in childhood from a very young age, or develop in a later situation when you are surrounded by people who are not nurturing and don’t allow you to express your feelings, or who themselves are scared of expressing their feelings.

Someone might have told you that feeling a particular way was a bad thing and there was something wrong with you. Or when you tried to express upset feelings they reacted as though it was horrifying and you were dangerous.

People respond this way because someone expressing their feelings makes them have to think about their own, and they might not know how to express or speak about their feelings in a healthy way. Either way it creates a trauma for you, which makes you believe that there's something in you to be feared or that is wrong, and you internal the fear, turning it on yourself.

In our society we are taught not to express our emotions from a very young age. We are told anger is bad and being happy all the time is good. We are told not to be scared, not to feel anxious and not to feel sad. This means when we do experience these emotions, we don’t know how to process them, or what to do with them, and end up pushing them down or away.

But bad feelings left unfelt or unprocessed will build up and become overwhelming, and trigger other problems like depression, anxiety, paranoia and other more extreme mental health problems like self harming and OCDs.

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” – Aristotle

Fearing your feelings is based in a lack of self trust or self knowledge. If you don’t spend time with your feelings, you avoid getting to know yourself and learning to trust yourself. It is also based in lack of self worth. If someone externally hasn’t approved of something you have expressed, you have put their opinion above your own. You are not valuing yourself or respecting yourself.

So how do you unravel this and stop being scared of yourself?

You need to start by asking yourself what it is you are scared of? What part of you are you holding in fear? And what do you think will happen if you stop being scared of it?

Remember FEAR means: False Evidence Appearing Real. 

Often our fears are created when our mind has taken over and believed something that isn’t true. Ask yourself, are you dangerous? Is there something scary about you?

We all have our dark sides; we can feel angry and negative about things and sometimes aren’t always feeling in a kind mood. That is allowed. You are allowed those feelings.

“Accept your dark side, understanding it will help you move with the light. Knowing both sides of our souls helps us move forward in life and understand that perfection doesn’t exist.” – M artin R. Lemieux

If those feelings are anger based, are you afraid you will never calm down? Are you afraid you will lash out and say or do something you’ll regret?

I was angry for a long time until I spent time listening to myself, and what it was I was angry about, and working through it. I realised I’d been treating myself badly. I’d mentally been pushing my angry self into a box and shutting it. I didn’t like that piece of myself and called it a monster. I separated from it and pretended it wasn’t there. But it was there for a reason and would keep coming out, because the anger was still there. It hadn’t gone away it was just shut away until it became so big it burst out – usually in a destructive way.

Once I let it out and listened to what it was angry about, I was able to put those feelings into a different perspective, using self-compassion and empathy. By being reassuring and comforting those feelings within myself, not judging them but actually feeling sympathetic towards them, I was able to stop being afraid of them and shutting them away.  

If those feelings are based in deep sadness, are you afraid you won’t be able to stop crying if you let them out? Are you afraid that you will never recover from that sadness?

I felt this way for a long time. My sadness was based in feeling I was never loved, and deeply lonely. But again, once I had listened to those feelings and let them out, I found that although I might have cried for a while initially, it did stop and I felt a lot better. They weren’t trapped inside me anymore. 

But how do you actually ‘listen’ to your feelings and ‘feel’ your feelings?

You literally sit with them. You register that you feel a certain way and sit down and let yourself feel the feeling throughout your body. Don’t think about it, or let your mind get involved. If thoughts come just let them run through your head, don’t argue with them or engage with them. Just be.

You can journal about the feeling too; write out what you are feeling, write down all the things you are afraid of and listen to them that way.

And if you are too scared to do either of those things alone, maybe ask a trusted friend or therapist who can be there with you when you do this. You can also express your feelings verbally too and hear them out loud.

The longer you remain in fear, the longer you stop yourself from living your best life. You limit joy from entering your life. Happiness comes from within. Only once you are fully accepting (and loving) of who you are, can you find true happiness.

“The fears we don’t face become our limits.” – Robin Sharma

Review: The Six Pillars of Self Esteem, by Nathaniel Branden

Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Branden
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I took my time reading this book as there is so much to process. This was my first book from Nathaniel Branden, and I will definitely seek out others he has written as I found this so helpful.

This book focuses on what self-esteem is and how to raise your self-esteem. This was the author's forte in his practice as a therapist. The six pillars are The Practice of Living Consciously, of Self Acceptance, of Self Responsiblity, of Self Assertiveness, of Living Purposefully, and of Personal Integrity. Some might feel that is enough to know, but Nathaniel Branden goes into detail about each of these and how they apply. It enables the reader to full understand the meaning of self-esteem and how to create and build it, if it was missing from your upbringing (as it was in mine). He also touches on those that had it damaged and how to work with that.

Nathaniel Branden uses a sentence completion system to repair and build self-esteem. He provides the beginning of a sentence for the reader/patient to complete. Through repetition daily, using the same 4-5 sentence stems for a week to two weeks, the reader/patient is able to trigger some conscious and subsconscious changes in their thinking to aid their self-esteem. Each pillar has its own sentence stems the reader can use, but at the back there is also a 31 week program or course where you can focus each week on 4-5 sentence stems and review them each week to really go indepth and work to build it properly and constructively. I am currently following it and finding it quite profound in places.

Some reviews of this book and of Nathaniel Branden's work are criticised due to his connection to Ayn Rand. Some feel that this connection negates his work in some way. I haven't fully understood why as I haven't found anything that Rand has written to contradict Branden's work. Or that she believed or wrote anything negative. On his own, his work has merit and for those seeking to improve their self-esteem and thus their outlook on life, and achieve more in life, this book is definitely worth your time.

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